THE    WORKS 


OF 


JAMES    ABRAM    GARFIELD 


VOL.  II. 


UITI7BES.ITT 


T-N 


y 


CONTENTS    OF    VOLUME 


Page 

PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES  :  THEIR  INCREASE  AND  DIMINUTION  ...        i 
Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  January  23,  1872. 

NATIONAL  AID  TO  EDUCATION 19 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  February  6,  1872. 

DR.  SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 26 

Remarks  made  at  the  Morse  Memorial  Meeting,  held  in  the  Hall  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  April  16,  1872. 

THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN  OF  1872 30 

Speech  delivered  at  Warren,  Ohio*  July  31,  1872. 

THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  :  ITS  DANGERS  AND  ITS  HOPES    .      46 
Address  delivered  before  the   Literary  Societies   of  Western   Reserve 
College,  Hudson,  Ohio,  July  2,  1873. 

THE   NORTHWEST   TERRITORY  :    SETTLEMENT  OF    THE  WESTERN 

RESERVE 70 

Address  delivered  before  the  Historical  Society  of  Geauga  County,  at 
Burton,  Ohio,  September  16,  1873. 

CHIEF  JUSTICE  CHASE  AND  PROFESSOR  AGASSIZ 92 

Remarks  made  in  the  Board  of  Regents  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution, 
December  19,  1873. 

REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES 96 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  March  $,  1874. 

APPROPRIATIONS  FOR  THE  FISCAL  YEAR  ENDING  JUNE  30,  1875    •     129 
Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  June  23,  1874. 

EFFECTS  OF  THE  REBELLION  ON  SOUTHERN  LIFE  INSURANCE  CON 
TRACTS     j40 

Argument  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  in  the  Case  of 
W.  E.  Tate  et  al.  v.  The  New  York  Life  Insurance  Co.  et  al.t  made 
March  17,  1874. 


vi  CONTENTS   OF   VOLUME   II. 

EFFECTS  OF  THE  REBELLION  ON  SOUTHERN  LIFE  INSURANCE  CON 
TRACTS     156 

Argument  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  in  the  Cases 
of  The  New  York  Life  Insurance  Co.  y.  Statham  et  al.  and  Charlotte 
Seyms,  made  April  26,  1876. 

CURRENCY  AND  THE  PUBLIC  FAITH 175 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  April  9,  1874. 

CENSUS 185 

Article  contributed  to  Johnson's  New  Universal  Cyclopaedia. 

AMNESTY 218 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  January  12,  1876. 

THE  CURRENCY  CONFLICT 246 

Paper  contributed  to  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  February,  1876. 

THE  DIPLOMATIC  AND  CONSULAR  SERVICE 274 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  February  7,  1876. 

HENRY  H.  STARKWEATHER 286 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  February  24,  1876. 

ALMEDA  A.  BOOTH:  HER  LIFE  AND  CHARACTER 290 

Address  delivered  at  Hiram  College,  Hiram,  Ohio,  June  22,  1876. 

THE  HAWAIIAN  ISLANDS 320 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  April  6,  1876. 

THE  GENEVA  AWARD 324 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  July  5,  1876. 

PHASES  OF  THE  SILVER  QUESTION 329 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives  on  various  Occasions. 

THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY  AND  THE  GOVERNMENT 353 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  August  4,  1876. 

JOHN   WlNTHROP   AND    SAMUEL   ADAMS 388 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  December  19,  1876. 

CONGRESS  AND  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS 393 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  January  16,  1877. 

COUNTING  THE  ELECTORAL  VOTE 406 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  January  25,  1877. 

THE  FLORIDA  RETURNS  IN  THE  ELECTION  OF  1876 435 

Argument  made  in  the  Electoral  Commission,  February  9,  1877. 


CONTENTS   OF   VOLUME  II.  vii 

THE  LOUISIANA  RETURNS  IN  THE  ELECTION  OF  1876 449 

Argument  made  in  the  Electoral  Commission,  February  16,  1877. 

A  CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS 463 

Paper  contributed  to  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  July,  1877. 

PROPOSED  REPEAL  OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW 490 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  November  16,  1877. 

THE  NEW  SCHEME  OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE 510 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  March  6,  1878. 

OLIVER  P.  MORTON 529 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  January  18,  1878. 

x  LINCOLN  AND  EMANCIPATION 533 

Address  delivered  in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  February 
12,  1878. 

VTHE  ARMY  AND  THE  PUBLIC  PEACE 543 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  May  21,  1878. 

THE  WOOD  TARIFF  BILL 551 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  June  4,  1878. 

THE  HALIFAX  AWARD 571 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  June  19,  1878. 

THE  PRESS 575 

Address  delivered  before  the  Ohio  Editorial  Association,  at  Cleveland, 
Ohio,  July  u,  1878. 

HONEST  MONEY 586 

Speech  delivered  in  Faneuil  Hall,  Boston,  September  10,  1878. 

SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION  OF  SPECIE  PAYMENTS 609 

Address  delivered  in  Chicago,  January  2,  1879. 

JOSEPH  HENRY 627 

Remarks  made  at  the  Henry  Memorial  Meeting  held  in  the  Hall  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  January  16,  1879. 

GUSTAVE    SCHLEICHER 632 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  February  17,  1879. 

THE  SUGAR  TARIFF 637 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  February  26,  1879. 
>  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS 655 

Speeches  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  March  29  and  April  4, 
1879. 


viii  CONTENTS   OF   VOLUME  II. 

y.  THE  NATIONAL  ELECTIONS  PROTECTED  BY  NATIONAL  AUTHORITY    679 
Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  April  26,  1879. 

CONGRESSIONAL  NULLIFICATION  .............    685 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  June  10,  1879. 

TROOPS  AT  THE  POLLS    ................    695 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  June  u,  1879. 

CONGRESSIONAL  NULLIFICATION    .............    703 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  June  19,  1879. 

THE  REVIVED  DOCTRINE  OF  STATE  SOVEREIGNTY   ......    708 

Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  June  27,  1879. 

OBEDIENCE  TO  LAW  THE  FIRST  DUTY  OF  CONGRESS   .....    723 
Speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  March  17,  1880. 

THE  APPOINTMENT  OF  SPECIAL  DEPUTY  MARSHALS  ......    731 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  March  19  and  April  23, 
1880. 

NATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS  AND  MISAPPROPRIATIONS  .....     740 
Paper  contributed  to  the  North  American  Review,  June,  1879. 

THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY  AND  PUBLIC  OPINION  .......    753 

Speech  delivered  in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  October  11,  1879. 

ZACHARIAH  CHANDLER  ................     773 

Remarks  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  January  28,  1880. 

NOMINATION  OF  JOHN  SHERMAN     ............     777 

Speech  delivered  in  the  Republican  National  Convention,  at  Chicago, 
June  5,  1880. 

LETTER  ACCEPTING  THE  NOMINATION  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY      .    .    782 
Mentor,  Ohio,  July  12,  1880. 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS 

Delivered  on  the  East  Portico  of  the  Capitol,  March  4,  1881. 


INDEX  .  797 


• 


THE   WORKS 


OF 


JAMES    A.    GARFIELD 


PUBLIC    EXPENDITURES: 

THEIR   INCREASE   AND    DIMINUTION. 

SPEECH   DELIVERED   IN   THE   HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 

JANUARY  23,  1872. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —  In  opening  the  discussion  of  this  bill, 
I  realize  the  difficulties  which  at  all  times  attend  the 
work  of  making  appropriations  for  carrying  on  the  government. 
But  there  are  more  than  ordinary  difficulties  attending  the  work 
of  a  chairman  who  succeeds  to  a  position  which  has  been  so 
adorned  as  has  the  chairmanship  of  the  Committee  on  Appro 
priations  during  the  last  two  years.1  The  most  that  I  can  now 
venture  is  to  express  the  hope  that,  by  the  generous  aid  of  my 
colleagues  on  the  committee,  and  the  support  of  the  House,  I 
may  be  able  to  follow,  at  a  humble  distance,  in  the  path  my 
predecessor  has  travelled. 

I  would  not  occupy  any  time  this  morning  in  the  preliminary 
discussion  of  this  bill,  but  for  the  fact  that  this  general  appro 
priation  bill,  more  than  any  other  of  the  twelve  which  will  come 
before  the  House,  embraces  in  its  scope  nearly  the  whole  civil 
establishment  of  the  government.  The  approval  of  this  bill  is, 
in  a  certain  sense,  the  approval  of  the  whole  system  to  which 

1  The  reference  is  to  Mr.  Dawes,  of  Massachusetts,  who  preceded  Mr.  Garfield 
as  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Appropriations.  The  speech  was  made  in  Com 
mittee  of  the  Whole. 

VOL.    II.  I 


2  PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES. 

the  other  appropriations  will  refer.  If  our  general  plan  of  ap 
propriations  ought  to  be  attacked,  this  is  the  place  to  begin. 
If  these  bills  have  a  sufficient  reason  for  being  in  the  main  what 
they  are,  that  sufficient  reason  can  be  given  for  the  passage  of 
this  bill  substantially  as  it  stands  in  the  print  before  us.  I  there 
fore  beg  the  indulgence  of  the  committee  while  I  call  attention 
to  a  few  questions  which  have  arisen  in  my  mind  in  the  study 
I  have  given  this  subject. 

And,  first  of  all,  I  will  consider  what  part  expenditures  play 
in  the  affairs  of  government.  It  is  difficult  to  discuss  expendi 
tures  comprehensively  without  discussing  also  the  revenues ;  but 
I  shall  on  this  occasion  allude  to  the  revenues  only  on  a  single 
point.  Revenue  and  the  expenditure  of  revenue  form  by  far  the 
most  important  element  in  the  government  of  modern  nations. 
Revenue  is  not,  as  some  one  has  said,  the  friction  of  a  govern 
ment,  but  rather  its  motive  power.  Without  it,  the  machinery 
of  a  government  cannot  move ;  and  by  it  all  the  movements 
of  a  government  are  regulated.  The  expenditure  of  revenue 
forms  the  grand  level  from  which  all  heights  and  depths  of  legis 
lative  action  are  measured.  The  increase  and  the  diminution  of 
the  burdens  of  taxation  depend  alike  upon  their  relation  to  this 
level  of  expenditures.  That  level  once  given,  all  other  policies 
must  conform  to  it  and  be  determined  by  it.  The  expenditure 
of  revenue  and  its  distribution,  therefore,  form  the  best  test  of  the 
health,  the  wisdom,  and  the  virtue  of  a  government.  Is  a  gov 
ernment  corrupt,  that  corruption  will  inevitably,  sooner  or  later, 
show  itself  at  the  door  of  the  treasury  in  demands  for  money. 
There  is  scarcely  a  conceivable  form  of  corruption  or  public 
wrong  that  does  not  at  last  present  itself  at  the  cashier's  desk 
and  demand  money.  The  Legislature,  therefore,  that  stands  at 
the  cashier's  desk  and  watches  with  Argus  eyes  the  demands 
for  payment  over  the  counter,  is  most  certain  to  see  all  the  forms 
of  public  rascality.  At  that  place,  too,  we  may  feel  the  nation's 
pulse ;  we  may  determine  whether  it  is  in  the  delirium  of  fever, 
or  whether  the  currents  of  its  life  are  flowing  with  the  steady 
throbbings  of  health.  What  could  have  torn  down  the  gaudy 
fabric  of  the  late  French  Empire  so  effectually  as  the  simple 
expedient  of  compiling  and  publishing  a  balance-sheet  of  the 
expenditures  of  Napoleon  III.'s  government,  as  compared  with 
the  expenditures  of  the  fifteen  years  which  preceded  his  reign? 
A  quiet  student  of  finance  exhibited  the  fact  that  during  the 


PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES.  3 

fifteen  years  of  that  reign  the  expenditures  of  his  government 
had  been  increased  by  the  enormous  total  of  $350,000,000 
in  gold  per  annum.  Much  of  this  vast  sum  had  been  cov 
ered  up  under  various  forms  of  statement;  but  the  merciless 
statistician  stripped  off  the  disguise  and  showed  the  yawning, 
bottomless  gulf  into  which  France  was  rushing  to  certain  and 
inevitable  ruin.  Erelong  she  took  the  fatal  plunge.  She  had 
kept  on  a  fair  exterior;  but  all  the  while  the  solid  founda 
tions  of  her  strength  were  being  honeycombed  through  and 
through  by  extravagance  and  corruption  in  her  finances ;  and 
at  last  she  went  down  in  the  smoke  and  desolation  of  war.  It 
was  only  the  crashing  through  of  the  worthless  fabric  that  was 
ready  to  perish  when  the  occasion  should  come.  We  have  seen 
in  some  of  our  own  municipal  governments,  and  perhaps  in 
some  of  our  State  governments,  the  same  process  going  on, 
which,  if  not  arrested,  must  ultimately  bring  them  to  a  fate 
hardly  less  deplorable. 

Such,  in  my  view,  are  the  relations  which  the  expenditures 
of  the  revenue  sustain  to  the  honor  and  safety  of  the  nation. 
How,  then,  shall  they  be  regulated?  By  what  gauge  shall  we 
determine  the  amount  of  revenue  that  ought  to  be  expended  by 
a  nation?  This  question  is  full  of  difficulty,  and  I  can  hope  to 
do  little  more  than  to  offer  a  few  suggestions  in  the  direction  of 
its  solution. 

And,  first,  I  remark  that  the  mere  amount  of  the  appropri 
ations  is  in  itself  no  test.  To  say  that  this  government  is 
expending  $292,000,000  a  year  may  be  to  say  that  we  are 
penurious  and  niggardly  in  our  expenditures,  or  it  may  be  to 
say  that  we  are  lavish  and  prodigal.  There  must  be  some 
ground  of  relative  judgment,  some  test  by  which  we  can  de 
termine  whether  expenditures  are  reasonable  or  exorbitant.  It 
has  occurred  to  me  that  two  tests  can  be  applied. 

The  first  and  most  important  is  the  relation  of  expenditure  to 
the  population.  In  some  ratio  corresponding  to  the  increase  of 
population  it  may  be  reasonable  to  increase  the  expenditures 
of  a  government.  This  is  the  test  usually  applied  in  Europe. 
In  an  official  table  of  the  expenditures  of  the  British  govern 
ment  for  the  last  fifteen  years,  now  before  me,  I  find  the  state- 
.ment  of  the  expenditure  per  capita  of  the  population  set  over 
against  the  annual  average  of  each  year.  The  average  expendi 
ture  per  capita  for  that  period  is  £2  ys.  jd.,  or  about  $12  in 


4  PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES. 

gold,  with  a  slight  tendency  to  decrease  each  year.  In  our  own 
country,  commencing  with  1830  and  taking  the  years  when  the 
census  was  taken,  I  find  that  the  expenditures,  per  capita,  ex 
clusive  of  payments  on  the  principal  and  interest  of  the  public 
debt,  were  as  follows :  — 


In  1830 $1.03 

In  1840 1.41 


In  1860 $1-94 

In  1870 4.26 


In  1850 1 .60 

or,  excluding  pensions,  $3.52. 

No  doubt  this  test  is  valuable.  But  how  shall  it  be  applied? 
Shall  the  increase  of  expenditures  keep  pace  with  the  increase 
of  population?  We  know  that  population  tends  to  increase 
in  a  geometrical  ratio,  that  is,  at  a  per  cent  compounded  annu 
ally.  If  the  normal  increase  of  expenditures  follows  the  same 
law,  we  might  look  forward  to  the  future  with  alarm.  It  is 
manifest,  however,  that  the  necessity  of  expenditures  does  not 
keep  pace  with  the  mere  increase  of  numbers ;  and  while  the 
total  sum  of  money  expended  from  year  to  year  must  necessa 
rily  be  greater,  the  amount  per  capita  ought  in  all  well-regulated 
governments,  in  time  of  peace,  to  grow  gradually  less. 

But  in  a  country  like  ours  there  is  another  element  besides 
population  that  helps  to  determine  the  movement  of  expendi 
tures.  That  element  can  hardly  be  found  in  any  other  country. 
It  is  the  increase  and  settlement  of  our  territory,  the  organic 
increase  of  the  nation  by  the  addition  of  new  States.  To  begin 
with  the  original  thirteen  States,  and  gauge  expenditure  till  now 
by  the  increase  of  population  alone,  would  be  manifestly  incor 
rect.  But  the  fact  that  there  have  been  added  twenty-four 
States,  and  that  we  now  have  nine  Territories,  not  including 
Alaska,  brings  a  new  and  important  element  into  the  calcula 
tion.  It  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  effect  of  this  element 
upon  expenditures.  But  if  we  examine  our  own  records  from 
the  beginning  of  the  government,  it  will  appear  that  every  great 
increase  of  settled  territory  has  very  considerably  added  to  the 
expenditures. 

If  these  reflections  be  just,  it  will  follow  that  the  ordinary 
movement  of  our  expenditures  depends  upon  the  action  of  two 
forces :  first,  the  natural  growth  of  population,  and  second,  the 
extension  of  our  territory  and  the  increase  in  the  number  of 
our  States.  Some  day,  no  doubt — and  I  hope  at  no  distant 
date — we  shall  have  reached  the  limit  of  territorial  expansion. 


PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES.  5 

I  hope  we  have  reached  it  now,  except  to  enlarge  the  number 
of  the  States  within  our  borders ;  and  when  we  have  settled  our 
unoccupied  lands,  when  we  have  laid  down  the  fixed  and  certain 
boundaries  of  our  country,  then  the  movement  of  our  expendi 
ture  in  time  of  peace  will  be  remitted  to  the  operation  of  the 
one  law,  the  increase  of  population.  That  law,  as  I  have 
already  intimated,  is  not  an  increase  by  a  per  cent  compounded 
annually,  but  by  a  per  cent  that  decreases  annually.  No  doubt 
the  expenditures  will  always  increase  from  year  to  year;  but 
they  ought  not  to  increase  by  the  same  per  cent  from  year  to 
year;  the  rate  of  increase  ought  gradually  to  grow  less. 

In  England,  for  example,  where  the  territory  is  fixed,  and 
they  are  remitted  to  the  single  law  of  increase  of  population, 
the  increase  of  expenditures  during  the  last  fifteen  years  of 
peace  has  been  only  about  one  and  three  quarters  per  cent 
compounded  annually.  I  believe  nobody  has  made  a  very 
careful  estimate  of  the  rate  in  our  country ;  our  growth  has 
been  too  irregular  to  afford  data  for  an  accurate  estimate.  But 
a  gentleman  who  has  given  much  attention  to  the  subject  ex 
pressed  to  me  the  belief  that  our  expenditures  in  time  of  peace 
have  increased  about  eight  per  cent  compounded  annually. 
This  is  too  high ;  yet  I  am  sure  that  somewhere  between  that 
and  the  English  rate  will  be  found  our  rate  of  increase  in  times 
of  peace.  I  am  aware  that  such  estimates  as  these  are  unsatis 
factory,  and  that  nothing  short  of  the  actual  test  of  experience 
can  determine  the  movements  of  our  expenditures;  but  these 
suggestions,  which  have  resulted  from  some  study  of  the  subject, 
I  offer  for  the  reflection  of  those  who  care  to  follow  them  out. 

Thus  far  I  have  considered  the  expenditures  that  arise  in 
times  of  peace.  Any  view  of  this  subject  would  be  incomplete 
that  did  not  include  a  consideration  of  the  effect  of  war  upon 
national  expenditures.  I  have  spoken  of  what  the  rate  for 
carrying  on  a  government  ought  to  be  in  time  of  peace.  I  will 
next  consider  the  effect  of  war  on  the  rate  of  increase.  And 
here  we  are  confronted  with  that  anarchic  element,  the  plague 
of  nations,  which  Jeremy  Bentham  called  "  mischief  on  the 
largest  scale."  After  the  fire  and  blood  of  the  battle-field  have 
disappeared,  nowhere  does  war  show  its  destroying  power  so 
certainly  and  so  relentlessly  as  in  the  columns  which  represent 
the  taxes  and  expenditures  of  the  nation.  Let  me  illustrate  this 
by  two  examples. 


6  PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES. 

In  1792,  the  year  preceding  the  commencement  of  the  great 
war  against  Napoleon,  the  expenditures  of  Great  Britain  were 
less  than  £20,000,000.  In  the  twenty-four  years  that  elapsed 
from  the  commencement  of  that  wonderful  struggle  until  its 
close  at  Waterloo,  in  1815,  the  expenditures  rose  by  successive 
bounds,  until,  in  one  year  near  the  close  of  the  war,  it  reached 
the  enormous  sum  of  £106,750,000.  The  unusual  increase  of 
the  public  debt,  added  to  the  natural  growth  of  expenditures 
from  causes  already  discussed,  made  it  impossible  for  Eng 
land  ever  to  return  to  her  old  level  of  expenditure.  It  took 
twenty  years  after  Waterloo  to  reduce  expenditures  from 
£77,750,000,  the  annual  average  of  the  second  decade  of  the 
century,  to  £45,750,000,  the  expenditure  for  1835.  This  last 
figure  is  the  lowest  that  England  has  known  in  the  present  cen 
tury.  There  followed  nearly  forty  years  of  peace,  from  Water 
loo  to  the  Crimean  war  in  1854.  The  figures  for  that  period 
may  be  taksn  to  represent  the  natural  growth  of  expenditures  in 
England.  During  that  time  the  expenditures  increased,  in  a  tol- 
eiably  uniform  ratio,  from  £45,750,000,  the  amount  for  1835, 
to  about  £51,750,000,  the  average  for  the  five  years  ending 
with  1854.  This  increase  was  about  $4,000,000  of  our  money 
per  annum.  Then  came  the  Crimean  war  of  1854  to  1856, 
in  one  year  of  which  the  expenditures  rose  to  £84,500,000. 
Again,  as  after  the  Napoleonic  war,  it  required  several  years  for 
the  expenditures  of  the  kingdom  to  get  down  to  the  new  level 
of  peace,  which  level  was  much  higher  than  that  of  the  former 
peace.  The  last  ten  years,  the  expenditures  of  Great  Britain 
have  again  been  gradually  increasing ;  the  average  for  the  six 
years  ending  with  March  31,  1871,  being  £68,750,000. 

As  the  second  example  of  the  effect  of  war  on  the  movement 
of  national  expenditures,  I  call  attention  to  our  own  history. 
Considering  the  ordinary  expenses  of  the  government,  exclusive 
of  payments  on  the  principal  and  interest  of  the  public  debt, 
the  annual  average  may  be  stated  thus. 

Beginning  with  1791,  the  last  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century 
showed  an  annual  average  of  $3,750,000.  The  first  decade  of 
the  present  century,  the  average  was  nearly  $5,500,000.  Or, 
commencing  with  1791,  there  followed  twenty  years  of  peace, 
during  which  the  annual  average  of  ordinary  expenditures  was 
more  than  doubled.  Then  followed  four  years,  from  1812  to 
1815,  inclusive,  in  which  the  war  with  England  swelled  the 


PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES.  7 

average  to  $25,500,000.  The  five  years  succeeding  that  war, 
the  average  was  $16,500,000;  and  it  was  not  until  1821  that  the 
new  level  of  peace  was  reached.  The  five  years  from  1821  to 
1825,  inclusive,  the  annual  average  was  $11,500,000.  From 
1825  to  1830,  $13,000,000.  From  1830  to  1835,  $17,000,000. 
From  1835  to  1840,  in  which  period  occurred  the  Seminole  war, 
$30,500,000.  From  1840  to  1845,  $27,000,000.  From  1845 
to  1850,  in  which  period  occurred  the  Mexican  war,  it  was 
$40,500,000.  From  1850  to  1855,  $47,^00,000.  From  1855  to 
June  30,  1861,  $67,000,000.  From  June  30,  1861,  to  June  30, 
1866,  $713,750,000;  and  from  June  30,  1866,  to  June  30,  1871, 
the  annual  average  was  $189,000,000. 

It  is  interesting  to  inquire  how  far  we  may  reasonably  expect 
to  go  in  the  descending  scale  before  we  reach  the  new  level  of 
peace.  We  have  already  seen  that  it  took  England  twenty 
years  after  Waterloo  to  reach  such  a  level.  Our  own  experience 
has  been  peculiar  in  this,  that  our  people  have  been  impatient 
of  debt,  and  have  always  determinedly  set  about  the  work  of 
reducing  it.  Throughout  our  history  there  may  be  seen  a 
curious  uniformity  in  the  movement  of  the  annual  expenditures 
for  the  years  immediately  following  a  war.  We  have  not  the 
data  to  determine  how  long  it  was  after  the  War  of  Indepen 
dence  before  the  expenditures  ceased  to  decrease,  that  is,  before 
they  reached  the  point  where  their  natural  growth  more  than 
balanced  the  tendency  to  reduction  of  war  expenditure ;  but  in 
the  years  immediately  following  all  our  subsequent  wars,  the 
decrease  has  continued  for  a  period  almost  exactly  twice  the 
length  of  the  war  itself.  After  the  war  of  1812-15,  the  expendi 
tures  continued  to  decline  for  eight  years,  reaching  the  lowest 
point  in  1823.  After  the  Seminole  war,  which  ran  through 
three  years,  1836,  1837,  and  1838,  the  new  level  was  not  reached 
until  1844,  six  years  after  its  close.  After  the  Mexican  war, 
which  lasted  two  years,  it  took  four  years,  until  1852,  to  reach 
the  level  of  peace. 

It  is  perhaps  unsafe  to  base  our  calculations  for  the  future  on 
these  analogies ;  but  the  wars  already  referred  to  have  been  of 
such  varied  character,  and  their  financial  effects  have  been  so 
uniform,  as  to  make  it  not  unreasonable  to  expect  that  a  similar 
result  will  follow  our  late  war.  If  so,  the  decrease  of  our  ordi 
nary  expenditures,  exclusive  of  the  principal  and  interest  of  the 
public  debt,  will  continue  until  1875  or  1876. 


8  PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES. 

It  will  be  seen  by  an  analysis  of  our  current  expenditures 
that,  exclusive  of  charges  on  the  public  debt,  nearly  fifty  million 
dollars  are  expenditures  directly  for  the  late  war.  Many  of 
these  expenditures  will  not  again  appear,  such  as  the  bounty 
and  back  pay  of  volunteer  soldiers,  and  payment  for  illegal 
captures  of  British  vessels  and  cargoes.  We  may  reasonably 
expect  that  the  expenditures  for  pensions  will  hereafter  steadily 
decrease,  unless  our  legislation  should  be  unwarrantably  ex 
travagant.  We  may  also  expect  a  large  decrease  in  expendi 
tures  for  the  internal  revenue  department.  Possibly,  we  may 
ultimately  be  able  to  abolish  the  department  altogether.  In 
the  accounting  and  disbursing  bureaus  of  the  Treasury  Depart 
ment  we  may  also  expect  a  further  reduction  of  the  force  now 
employed  in  settling  war  claims. 

We  cannot  expect  so  rapid  a  reduction  of  the  public  debt 
and  its  burden  of  interest  as  we  have  witnessed  for  the  last  three 
years  ;  but  the  reduction  will  doubtless  continue,  and  the  burden 
of  interest  will  constantly  decrease.  I  know  it  is  not  safe  to 
attempt  to  forecast  the  future ;  but  I  venture  to  express  the 
belief,  that,  if  peace  continues,  the  year  1876  will  witness  our 
ordinary  expenditures  reduced  to  $135,000,000,  and  the  inter 
est  on  our  public  debt  to  $95,000,000;  making  our  total  ex 
penditures,  exclusive  of  payment  on  the  principal  of  the  public 
debt,  $230,000,000.  Judging  from  our  own  experience  and 
from  that  of  other  nations,  we  may  not  hope  thereafter  to  reach 
a  lower  figure.  In  making  this  estimate  I  have  assumed  that 
there  will  be  a  considerable  reduction  of  the  burdens  of  taxation, 
and  that  the  revenue  in  excess  of  expenditures  will  not  be  nearly 
so  great  as  now. 

The  movement  of  our  public  debt  may  be  thus  summarily 
stated.  January  I,  1789,  we  had  a  debt  of  $75,000,000.  It 
took  twenty-one  years  to  reduce  its  bulk  to  $45,000,000,  the 
amount  outstanding  in  1812.  The  war  with  England  raised  it 
to  $127,000,000,  where  it  stood  in  1816.  It  took  twenty  years 
more  to  pay  it  off.  The  war  with  Mexico  left  us  with  a  debt  of 
$68,000,000,  and  it  took  ten  years  to  reduce  it  to  $28,500,000, 
the  lowest  point  it  has  ever  reached  since  1846.  The  debt  cre 
ated  by  our  late  war  reached  its  stupendous  maximum  on  July 
31,  1865.  In  the  six  and  a  half  years  that  have  since  elapsed  it 
has  been  reduced  by  the  sum  of  $556,579,578,  a  reduction  of 
twenty  and  a  half  per  cent  of  its  whole  amount.  During  that 


PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES. 


time  the  annual  interest  on  the  debt  has  been  reduced  by  the 
sum  of  $42,608,329.  I  subjoin  a  table  prepared  at  the  Treasury 
Department,  which  exhibits,  in  successive  years,  the  movement 
of  the  principal  and  interest  of  the  public  debt  since  its  maxi 
mum  was  reached. 

Statement  of  Reduction  of  Public  Debt,  Interest  Charge,  and  Treasury 

Balances. 


Date. 

Amount  of 
the  Principal 
of  Public 
Debt. 

Balance  in  Treasury. 

Total 
Treasury 
Balance. 

Debt  less 
Cash. 

Yearly 
Interest 
charged. 

Gold. 

Currency. 

July  31,  1865,  max. 
Mar.   i,  1869 
Mar.   i,  1870 
July    i,  1871 
July    i,  1872 

$2,872,734,908 
2,606,994,694 
2,407,174,246 
2,353>2n,332 
2,326,710,016 

,535,337,8s8 
98,741,261 
103,174,209 
96,683,900 
111,432,826 

$81,401,775 
16,853,529 
20,854,606 
9.533)363 
15,861,493 

$!  16,739.633 

H5>594,790 
124,028,815 
106,217,263 
127,294,319 

$2,755,995,275 
2,49i,399.904 
2,283,145,431 
2,246,994,069 
2,199,415,697 

$151,832,051 
126,389,550 
114,852,089 
"1,439,385 
109,223,622 

1  §546,024,892 

2$io,554,6S6 

1  £556,579,578 

I$42,6o8,329 

This  rapid  reduction  of  the  principal  and  interest  of  our  public 
debt  tends  also  to  strengthen  the  hope  that  for  three  or  four 
years  to  come  our  expenditures  will  continue  to  decrease.  It 
would  be  cheering,  indeed,  if  we  might  also  hope  that,  when  the 
nation  again  begins  the  ascent,  it  will  be  up  the  beautiful  slope 
where  no  sign  of  war  shall  come  for  many  long  years.  If  so, 
the  ascent  will  be  gradual  and  gentle,  and  will  mark  the  course 
of  that  highway  along  which  the  nation  shall  move  upward  and 
forever  upward  in  its  grand  career  of  prosperity.  But  let  it  be 
forever  borne  in  mind  that  the  day  which  witnesses  a  new  war 
increases  more  and  more  heavily  than  ever  the  calamities  of  the 
past.  For  the  burdens  of  the  past  are  mainly  the  burdens  of 
war,  and  a  national  debt  may  rise  to  a  point  at  which  the  people 
lose  heart  and  grow  hopeless. 

Conceding  to  England  all  her  wealth,  all  her  greatness,  and 
all  her  glory,  still  one  fact  in  her  history  is  so  full  of  gloomy 
portent  that  I  have  never  been  able  to  understand  how  her 
statesmen  can  look  upon  it  without  the  profoundest  alarm.  It 
would  seem  that  all  hope  of  paying  off,  or  even  of  considerably 
reducing  her  public  debt,  is  extinguished  in  the  minds  of  her 
people.  The  last  attempt  in  that  direction  was  made  by  Mr. 
Gladstone,  then  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  In  his  speech 
on  the  budget  of  1866,  after  affirming  that  nine  leading  nations 
of  Europe  had  incurred  a  debt  of  no  less  than  £1,5 00,000,000 

1  Reduction  since  July  31,  1865.  2  Increase  over  July  31,  1865. 


10  PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES. 

during  the  last  twenty-five  years,  and  that  too  in  a  time  of  very 
general  peace,  he  said  that  America  was  the  only  great  nation 
of  the  world  that  was  considerably  reducing  her  debt.  Then 
referring  to  the  British  debt,  he  said :  — 

"  At  the  close  of  the  war  against  France  in  1815,  the  British  debt  was 
^902, 264,000.  On  the  5th  of  January,  1854,  it  was  ^800,515,000. 
From  1815  to  1854,  there  were  nearly  forty  years  of  the  most  profound 
tranquillity  ever  known  in  this  country The  rate  of  decrease  dur 
ing  that  period  was  ^2,609,000  per  annum I  do  not  believe,  if 

we  take  the  whole  years  of  peace  since  1815,  that  the  average  reduction 
would  reach  ^3,000,000.  If  ever  we  should  become  involved  in  any 
great  and  protracted  war,  we  must  expect  to  see  the  debt  increase  at  about 
ten  times  the  annual  rate  by  which  we  reduce  it  in  time  of  peace." 

A  steady  though  not  extravagant  reduction  of  our  debt  should 
be  the  fixed  policy  of  the  nation. 

In  order  to  judge  more  accurately  the  future  of  our  expendi 
tures,  I  ask  attention  to  an  analysis  of  those  of  the  last  fiscal 
year.  In  doing  so  I  will  venture  a  criticism  on  the  form  in 
which  the  records  of  receipts  and  expenditures  are  presented  to 
us  in  the  reports  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  In  preparing 
the  analysis  which  I  shall  present  I  noticed  several  items  which 
I  cannot  regard  as  real  expenditures,  nor  have  they  ever  in  fact 
been  receipts  of  the  government.  In  his  last  report,  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury  states  that  the  expenditures  for  the  fis 
cal  year  ending  June  30,  1871,  amounted  to  $292,177,188.25. 
Now,  I  call  the  attention  of  the  committee  to  several  items 
included  in  that  sum,  which  should  not  be  counted  in  an 
exhibit  of  what  it  costs  to  run  the  government. 

For  instance,  in  exchanging  coin  in  the  Treasury  for  out 
standing  bonds,  the  premium  on  the  coin  is  set  down  as  revenue, 
and  the  premium  on  the  bonds  purchased  is  set  down  as  an 
expenditure.  Of  course  the  books  of  the  Treasury  ought  to 
show  these  transactions  in  full ;  but  the  two  amounts  should 
not  go  to  swell  the  receipts  and  expenditures  of  the  govern 
ment.  The  one  is  not  revenue  in  the  ordinary  meaning  of  that 
term,  nor  is  the  other  expenditure.  Yet  here,  on  pages  3  and  5 
of  the  tables  appended  to  the  Secretary's  report,  is  set  down 
as  premiums  on  sales  of  coin  nearly  $9,000,000,  and  as  pre 
miums  paid  on  purchased  bonds,  a  little  more  than  $9,000,000. 
The  figures  presented  to  the  country  ought  to  be  the  differ 
ence  between  the  two  sums,  which  difference  in  this  case 


PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES.  1 1 

should  be  set  down  as  part  of  the  expense  of  managing  the 
national  debt.  That  difference,  we  find,  is  only  $123,954; 
yet,  by  this  record,  the  government  is  charged  with  having 
expended  over  $9,000,000  for  that  purpose. 

Here  is  another  item.  I  understand  that  when  a  ship  arrives 
in  port,  and  the  merchant  desires  to  get  his  goods  at  once,  he 
makes  a  deposit  at  the  custom-house  of  a  sum  larger  than  the 
amount  of  the  duties ;  and  when  the  amount  to  be  collected  is 
ascertained,  the  balance  of  his  deposit  is  refunded.  Now,  all 
the  sums  paid  back  to  merchants  in  this  way,  sums  which  never 
belonged  to  the  Treasury,  never  were  revenue  in  fact  or  in  law, 
are  charged  as  expenditures.  On  page  4,  under  the  heading  of 
"  Miscellaneous  Expenditures,"  I  find  this  entry:  "Refunding 
excess  of  deposits  for  unascertained  duties,  $1,787,266.59." 

There  is  another  item,  which  gentlemen  who  care  to  follow 
these  remarks,  will  also  find  on  page  4.  When  imported  goods 
are  re-exported,  a  drawback  is  allowed  to  the  full  amount  of  the 
duty.  In  many  cases  the  duty  does  not  come  into  the  Treasury 
at  all,  and  of  course  the  cancelling  of  the  duty  is  not  a  payment 
out  of  the  Treasury.  That  sum  should  neither  be  reckoned  as 
expenses  nor  as  receipts;  but  yet  $978,358  of  "  Debentures 
and  drawbacks  under  the  customs  laws  "  is  set  down  among  the 
expenditures  for  the  last  fiscal  year.  Both  this  and  the  preced 
ing  item  are  set  down  as  a  part  of  the  cost  of  collecting  the 
customs  revenue. 

Another  item  of  $490,660  for  "  Refunding  customs  duties 
erroneously  or  illegally  collected,"  which  appears  in  the  list  of 
expenses,  manifestly  never  belonged  to  the  United  States. 

There  are  two  similar  items  in  connection  with  the  administra 
tion  of  the  internal  revenue  department,  amounting  to  more 
than  a  million  dollars,  in  which  the  taxes  were  erroneously  or 
illegally  paid  and  subsequently  returned  to  the  citizens  who  paid 
them;  .also,  in  the  Land  Office,  an  item  of  repayment  for  land 
erroneously  sold.  Without  troubling  the  committee  with  a  more 
specific  statement  of  the  items,  I  submit  the  following  table :  — 

Items   stated  in   Tables   of  the  Secretary's  Report  as  Expenses  of  the 
United  States  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,   1871. 

Refunding  excess  of  deposits  for  unascertained  duties $1,787,266.59 

Debentures  and  drawbacks  under  customs  laws 978,358-33 

Refunding  duties  erroneously  or  illegally  collected 490,659.68 

Amount  carried  forward .$3,256,284.60 


12  PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES. 

Amount  brought  forward $3,256,284.60 

Internal  revenue  allowances  and  drawbacks 451,203.66 

Refunding  taxes  erroneously  or  illegally  collected 612,243.30 

Repayment  for  lands  erroneously  sold 43'7^5'49 

Premium  on  purchase  of  bonds 9,016,794.74 

Refunding  excess  of  deposits  for  surveying  public  lands 22,232.66 

$13,402,524.45 

There  are  three  other  items  which,  I  am  inclined  to  believe, 
should  go  into  this  statement,  and  which  would  swell  the  amount 
to  nearly  fifteen  millions ;  but  I  omit  them,  because  I  am  not 
perfectly  satisfied  that  they  belong  here.  Now,  of  course  all 
these  items  appear  on  both  sides  of  the  ledger,  and  correctly 
represent  the  transactions.  But  our  taxes  and  expenses  are 
heavy  enough  without  the  addition  of  sums,  that  apparently,  but 
not  really,  swell  the  totals  on  both  sides  of  the  account. 

The  account  of  all  these  transactions  should,  of  course,  be 
kept  at  the  Treasury.  Doubtless  that  is  the  correct  method  of 
keeping  the  books;  but  is  not  a  just  method  of  expressing  to 
the  people  what  their  government  costs. 

I  call  the  attention  of  the  committee  to  the  account  of  ex 
penditures  of  the  War  Department  on  page  5  of  the  Secretary's 
tables.  Gentlemen  will  see  that  the  total  expenditures  of  that 
Department  are  set  down  at  $35,799,991.82.  Now,  in  order 
to  get  that  sum,  $8,280,093,  the  proceeds  of  sales  of  ordnance, 
was  deducted.  That  is,  the  War  Department  sold  ordnance 
to  the  amount  of  $8,280,093,  and  used  the  proceeds  to  defray 
its  ordinary  expenses.  But  the  whole  of  that  sum  is  subtracted 
as  though  it  were  not  an  expenditure  of  the  War  Department. 
It  should  manifestly  be  set  down  as  a  charge  which  the  gov 
ernment  has  had  to  pay.  It  would  be  proper,  of  course,  to 
account  for  it  on  the  other  side  of  the  ledger  as  "  receipts  from 
sales  of  property,"  and  doubtless  it  was  so  entered ;  but  to  cut 
it  out  of  the  total  expenditures  of  the  year  because  it  came 
from  the  sale  of  old  property  does  not  correctly  state  the  ex 
penditures  of  the  Department. 

I  make  this  explanation  before  presenting  a  table  which  I 
shall  offer  in  a  moment,  and  in  which,  for  the  sake  of  com 
parison,  I  have  in  the  main  followed  the  Treasury  mode  of 
statement. 

In  order  more  clearly  to  understand  the  nature  of  our  ex 
penditures,  I  have  endeavored  to  analyze  more  closely  some  of 


PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES.  13 

the  large  groups  set  down  in  the  Secretary's  report.  For  in 
stance,  I  find  under  the  head  of  "  Miscellaneous  Expenses"  over 
forty  million  dollars.  It  will  be  interesting  to  know  some  of  the 
larger  items  of  which  that  sum  is  composed.  I  find,  also,  that 
the  War  Department  appears  to  be  charged  with  $44,080,084.82 
as  the  expenditures  for  the  year.  This  sum  contains  many  large 
amounts  that  do  not  properly  belong  to  the  expense  of  main 
taining  our  military  establishment.  For  example,  an  item  of 
more  than  $10,000,000  of  bounty  and  back  pay  to  soldiers  of 
the  late  war,  is  no  part  of  the  cost  of  maintaining  our  present 
army;  also,  $2,379,246  paid  to  States  to  reimburse  them  for 
raising  volunteers;  also,  $4,834,277  for  the  improvement  of 
rivers  and  harbors ;  and  several  similar  items,  which  it  would 
be  very  unjust  to  set  down  as  the  current  expenses  of  our 
military  establishment. 

The  accounts  should  be  so  grouped  as  to  do  justice  to  all  the 
departments  of  the  government.  In  the  following  table  I  have 
followed  the  Secretary's  method  of  stating  the  accounts  in  all 
respects  except  these.  I  have  omitted  the  $9,016,794  expendi 
ture  for  premium  on  bonds  purchased,  and  have  put  down  only 
the  $123,954,  the  difference  between  that  sum  and  the  proceeds 
from  premium  on  sales  of  coin.  I  have  also  reckoned  the 
$8,280,093,  proceeds  of  sales  of  ordnance,  as  money  expended 
by  the  War  Department.  These  changes  vary  but  little  the 
total  expenditure  of  the  year  from  the  statement  of  the  Secre 
tary.  In  order  to  understand  more  clearly  the  nature  of  the 
expenditures  for  the  last  fiscal  year,  I  will  distribute  the  amounts 
into  three  groups,  as  follows :  - 

i .  The  Amounts  paid  during  the  Year  on  Account  of  the  late  War. 

Interest  on  the  public  debt       $125,576,565.93 

Expenses  of  refunding  the  national  debt 332,173.04 

Difference  between  premium  on  bonds  purchased  and  gold  sold      .  I23>954-79 

Pensions 34>443>894-88 

National  asylum  for  volunteers •    296,287.32 

Bounties  and  back  pay  to  volunteer  soldiers 10,656,300.53 

Reimbursing  States  for  expenses  of  volunteers 2,379,246.72 

Horses  and  other  property  lost  in  service  in  the  late  war    ....  228,836.75 

Illegal  capture  of  British  vessels  and  cargoes  during  the  late  war     .  760,728.72 

Return  of  captured  and  abandoned  property,  and  expenses  of  suits  .  743,540.09 

Capture  of  Jefferson  Davis 1,611.50 

Total    .  $I75.543»I40.27 


I4  PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES. 

Amount  brought  forward $i75»543-I4O-27 

2.  Present  Military  and  Naval  Establishments. 

For  the  Army,  after  deducting  payments  for  the  late 
war,  already  mentioned  in  Group  i,and  for  im 
provements  of  rivers  and  harbors $25,683,524.25 

For -the  Navy I9»43I»O27-21 

45,114,551.46 

3.    The  Civil  Service  proper,  being  all  the  Expenditures  not  named 
in  the  first  and  second  Groups. 

The  civil  list,  being  expenses  of  legislative,  judicial, 
and  executive  officers  of  the  government,  not 
including  internal  revenue  and  customs  depart 
ments  $  1 5,802, 599.98 

Foreign  intercourse i>6o4,373.87 

Indians 7,426,997.44 

Improvements  of  rivers  and  harbors 4,834,277.88 

Public  buildings  and  grounds,  including  repairs  .     .       3,286,011.30 
Expenses  of  mints,  coast  survey,  lighthouses,  rev 
enue-cutter  service,  and  marine  hospitals      .     .       6,134,701.12 
Cost   of    collecting    customs    duties,    exclusive    of 
revenue-cutter    service,   and   building   and    re 
pairing  custom-houses 10,543,199.60 

Cost  of  assessing  and  collecting  internal  revenue      .       9,001,680.71 
Deficiency  in  revenue    of   the  Post-Office  Depart 
ment,  including  carrying  of  free  mail  matter      .       4,400,000.00 
Expenses  of  the  eighth  and  ninth  censuses      .     .     .       1,955,111.13 

Mail  steamship  service '       731,250.00 

Refunding  of  Massachusetts  interest  on  advances 

for  war  of  1812-15 678,362.41 

Survey  of  public  lands 564,940.76 

Miscellaneous        3,943,243.50 

70,906,749.70 

Grand  total $291,564,441.43 

It  will  be  seen  that  I  have  placed  in  the  first  group  all 
those  items  of  expenditure,  exclusive  of  the  principal  of  the 
public  debt,  which  are  paid  directly  for  expenses  of  the 
late  war.  These  items  explain  themselves,  and  amount  to 
$175,543,140.27.  The  second  group  exhibits  the  current  mili 
tary  and  naval  expenses  of  the  government,  excluding  ex 
penditures  for  the  improvement  of  harbors  and  rivers,  which 
is  properly  a  civil  expenditure,  and  also  excluding  payments 
for  the  late  war,  which  belong  to  another  group.  In  the  third 
group  I  have  placed  the  civil  expenditures  proper,  —  all  that 
do  not  belong  to  the  nrst  two  groups.  From  this  table  it 
appears  that,  of  the  expenses  during  the  past  year,  sixty  and 


PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES.  15 

one  half  per  cent  of  the  whole  amount,  leaving  out  the  payment 
of  the  principal  of  the  public  debt,  was  directly  for  the  late 
war;  fourteen  per  cent  was  for  the  support  of  our  army  and 
navy;  and  twenty-five  and  one  half  per  cent,  for  all  the  other 
departments  of  the  government.  Or,  stated  more  summarily, 
sixty  and  one  half  per  cent  of  all  our  expenditures  last  year  was 
for  the  war,  and  thirty-nine  and  one  half  per  cent  for  current 
expenses. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  compare  this  analysis  with  a  similar 
analysis  of  the  expenses  of  the  British  government  for  the  past 
year.  This  table,  which  I  have  compiled  from  official  reports, 
makes  the  same  three  groups  for  the  expenditures  of  that 
country  that  I  have  made  for  our  own. 

British  Expenditures  for  1871. 

Items.  Totals.  Per  cent 

Charges  on  the  public  debt  (interest)  .     .  £26,826,436  38^ 

Army     ........  £13,430,400 

Navy     ........        9,456,641 

-      22,887,041  33 

-        £49.7!  3>477 
All  other  expenditures       ............      19,986,062  28^ 


Total     ................  £69,699,539  IPO 

The  interest  on  the  British  debt  is  thirty-eight  and  one  half 
per  cent  of  the  whole  annual  expenditures.  The  cost  of  the 
army  and  navy  is  thirty-three  per  cent  of  the  whole.  These 
two  elements,  being  the  cost  of  past  and  prospective  wars,  make 
seventy-one  and  one  half  per  cent  of  the  whole  expenditure. 
All  other  expenditures  of  their  government  amount  to  but 
twenty-eight  and  one  half  per  cent.  It  is  curious  to  observe  that 
their  civil  establishment  costs  almost  the  same  per  cent  of  the 
whole  expenditures  as  ours  does.  But  while  thirty-three  per 
cent  of  all  of  their  expenditures  is  for  their  present  military 
and  naval  establishments,  ours  cost  but  fourteen  per  cent,  — 
less  than  one  half  of  their  rate. 

Leaving  these  general  considerations,  I  call  the  attention 
of  the  committee  to  the  appropriations  for  next  year,  and  to 
the  bill  under  consideration.  The  Committee  on  Appropria 
tions  found  that  a  most  excellent  example  had  been  set  last 
year  and  the  year  before  by  their  predecessors.  In  almost 
every  case  of  a  continuing  expenditure,  we  found  it  safe  to 
take  their  appropriations  as  the  basis  of  our  own.  We  have 


1 6  PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES. 

not  yet  gone  over  the  twelve  appropriation  bills,  which  we  are 
required  to  present  for  the  action  of  this  House ;  but  we  have 
gone  so  nearly  over  them  that  I  am  able  to  state  approximate!) 
what  the  result  will  be. 

Gentlemen  will  remember  that  our  appropriations  are  of  twc 
kinds,  permanent  and  annual.  The  permanent  appropriations 
are  those  provided  for  by  statute  to  meet  special  obligations  o 
the  government  as  they  arise,  and  for  the  payment  of  which  nc 
specific  act  of  appropriation  is  necessary  except  the  law  whicl: 
created  the  obligation.  These  include  interest  on  the  public 
debt;  expenditures  of  national  loans;  repayment  of  taxes  im 
properly  collected;  bounties  and  back  pay  to  soldiers  of  th( 
late  war;  property  lost  in  the  military  service ;  support  of, the 
national  asylums  for  disabled  volunteer  soldiers ;  marine  hospi 
tals;  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  and  many  other  similar  ex 
penditures.  The  amount  of  this  class  of  appropriations  for  the 
next  fiscal  year  will  be  about  nine  million  dollars  less  than  fo: 
the  current  year.  The  amount  of  permanent  appropriations  fo: 
the  fiscal  year  1871  was  $183,302,243  ;  the  amount  for  the  fisca 
year  1872  is  estimated  at  $163,601,861  ;  and  for  the  fiscal  yea: 
1873,  at  $154,961,237.  The  other  class  of  appropriations  an 
those  provided  for  each  year  in  the  regular  appropriation  bills 
The  amount  of  appropriations  of  this  class  made  last  year  foi 
the  current  fiscal  year  was  $162,096,526.60.  In  the  correspond' 
ing  bills  for  the  next  fiscal  year  the  committee  will  recommenc 
appropriations  which  amount  to  about  $152,000,000.  We  hop< 
that  when  these  bills  shall  have  become  laws  the  total  amoun 
appropriated  in  them  will  be  at  least  $9,000,000  less  than  th< 
corresponding  appropriations  for  last  year. 

I  next  call  attention  briefly  to  the  Legislative,  Executive,  anc 
Judicial  Bill  now  before  the  House.  As  it  stands  in  the  prin 
before  us  it  appropriates  $17,772,753  for  the  fiscal  year  ending 
June  30,  1873.  The  corresponding  bill  of  last  year,  whicl 
made  appropriations  for  the  current  fiscal  year,  as  it  was  firs 
introduced,  appropriated  $18,635,840.  When  it  became  a  law 
the  amount  had  increased  to  $20,772,402.  I  am  authorized  tc 
recommend  some  increase  above  the  amounts  named  in  the 
print  before  us,  but  I  hope  that  increase  will  not  carry  the  bil 
much,  if  any,  above  $18,000,000.  The  estimates  on  which  this 
bill  is  based  call  for  the  sum  of  $20,009,418.  The  committee 
have  cut  down  those  estimates,  so  that  the  pending  bill  appro- 


PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES.  17 

priates  $2,336,000  less  than  the  estimates,  and  $3,000,000  less 
than  the  amount  appropriated  for  the  same  objects  last  year. 
Justice  to  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  of  last  year  requires 
me  to  say  that  we  claim  no  merit  for  the  whole  amount  of  this 
reduction.  The  leading  item  is  a  reduction  of  $1,000,000  in 
the  amount  appropriated  as  compensation  and  mileage  of  the 
members  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  We  propose  this 
for  the  reason  that  this  appropriation  bill  will  not  apply  to 
any  Congress  but  the  present.  This  Congress  will  expire  on 
the  4th  of  March,  1873,  and  this  appropriation  is  for  the  year 
ending  on  the  3Oth  of  June  following.  Under  our  present  laws 
there  will  be  no  Congress  in  session  between  March  and  June 
of  1873;  there  will  be  no  organized  House  of  Representatives 
until  the  following  December.  We  thought  it  unnecessary  to 
appropriate  a  large  sum  of  money  for  a  Congress  that  will  not 
assemble  within  the  fiscal  year  for  which  these  appropriations 
are  made. 

We  have  made  a  reduction  of  $680,000  in  the  appropriation 
for  assessing  and  collecting  internal  revenue;  and  that  reduc 
tion  is  accomplished  by  a  clause  in  the  bill  limiting  the  compen 
sation  of  collectors  of  revenue  to  $4,500  a  year,  which  limitation 
I  hope  will  meet  the  approval  of  the  House.  The  work  of 
collecting  the  internal  revenue  has  been  greatly  reduced  and 
simplified,  and  a  very  general  impression  prevails  that  we  pay 
too  much  money  for  the  work.  There  are  many  other  items  of 
reduction  which  will  be  noticed  as  we  proceed  to  consider  the 
bill  by  sections. 

We  have  added  a  few  clauses  to  protect  the  Treasury  against 
fraudulent  claims,  and  to  cut  off  some  expenditures  which  have 
grown  up  as  a  matter  of  custom,  but  which  appear  to  us  un 
necessary. 

I  may  venture  to  say  for  the  Committee  on  Appropriations, 
that,  while  they  have  endeavored  to  follow  the  line  of  rigid  and 
reasonable  economy,  they  have  not  forgotten  the  vastness  and 
variety  of  the  functions  of  the  government,  whose  operations 
should  be  maintained  vigorously  and  generously.  It  would  be 
a  mistake  to  cut  down  expenditures  in  any  department,  so  as  to 
cripple  any  work  which  must  be  done,  and  which  can  better  be 
done  at  once  and  ended,  by  a  liberal  appropriation,  than  to 
drag  on  through  a  series  of  years  by  reason  of  insufficient 
appropriations.  It  is  better  to  make  a  reduction  of  whole 

VOL.    II.  2 


!g  PUBLIC  EXPENDITURES. 

groups,  when  that  can  be  done,  than  merely  to  cut  down  indi 
vidual  items. 

But  I  hope  that  members  of  the  House  will  bear  in  mind 
that  in  many  of  our  civil  departments  we  have  large  forces  of 
employees,  which  the  settlement  of  war  accounts  made  neces 
sary,  and  which,  when  their  work  is  done,  it  will  require  no  little 
courage  and  effort  to  reduce  to  a  peace  basis.  In  doing  so,  it 
would  be  well  for  us  to  adopt  the  sentiment  recently  expressed 
by  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  "  the  true 
way  to  save  is  not  the  cutting  down  of  single  items,  but  a  more 
complete  organization  of  our  departments,  and  the  determina 
tion  that,  for  whatever  the  country  spends,  it  shall  have  full 
value  in  labor,  talents,  or  materials." 

In  conclusion,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  thank  the  members  of  the 
House  for  the  patience  with  which  they  have  listened  to  these 
dry  details,  and  for  the  kind  attention  with  which  they  have 
honored  me. 


SEE  the  article  entitled  "  National  Appropriations  and  Misappropria 
tions  "  for  an  interesting  discussion  of  that  part  of  this  speech  in  which 
Mr.  Garfield  considers  the  future  course  of  national  expenditures  in  the 
United  States. 


NATIONAL  AID  TO   EDUCATION. 

SPEECH   DELIVERED   IN   THE   HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 

FEBRUARY  6,  1872. 


ON  the  1 5th  of  January,  1872,  Mr.  L.  W.  Perce,  of  Mississippi,  intro 
duced  from  the  Committee  on  Education  and  Labor  a  bill  to  establish 
an  Educational  Fund,  the  first  section  of  which  provided  that  the  net 
proceeds  of  the  public  lands  should  be  forever  set  apart  for  the  educa 
tion  of  the  people.  Other  sections  provided  that  one  half  of  such  net 
proceeds,  at  the  close  of  each  fiscal  year,  should  be  invested  in  five  per 
cent  bonds  of  the  United  States,  the  same  to  constitute  a  perpetual  edu 
cational  fund ;  and  that  the  other  half  of  said  proceeds,  together  with 
the  yearly  interest  on  the  perpetual  endowment,  should  be  apportioned 
among  the  States  for  the  purposes  of  common  education,  according  to 
their  population,  on  their  complying  with  certain  terms  and  conditions 
set  forth  in  the  bill.  The  bill  passed  the  House,  February  8,  but  was 
not  considered  in  the  Senate.  Mr.  Garfield  supported  the  measure  in 
this  speech. 


"  The  preservation  of  the  means  of  knowledge  among  the  lowest  ranks  is  of  more  impor 
tance  to  the  public  than  all  the  property  of  all  the  rich  men  in  the  country."—  JOHN  ADAMS, 
Works,  Vol.  III.  p.  457. 

"  That  all  education  should  be  in  the  hands  of  a  centralized  authority,  whether  composed  of 
clergy  or  of  philosophers,  and  be  consequently  all  framed  on  the  same  model,  and  directed  to 
the  perpetuation  of  the  same  type,  is  a  state  of  things  which,  instead  of  becoming  more  ac 
ceptable,  will  assuredly  be  more  repugnant  to  mankind  with  every  step  of  their  progress  in  the 
unfettered  exercise  of  their  highest  faculties."  —  JOHN  STUART  MILL,  The  Positive  Philos 
ophy  of  Auguste  Comte,  p.  92. 

MR.  SPEAKER,  —  In  the  few  minutes  given  me,  I  shall 
address  myself  to  two  questions.  The  first  is,  What  do 
we  propose  by  this  bill  to  give  to  the  cause  of  education?  and 
the  second  is,  How  do  we  propose  to  give  it?  Is  the  gift  itself 
wise?  and  is  the  mode  in  which  we  propose  to  give  it  wise? 
Answers  to  these  questions  will  include  all  I  have  to  say. 


20  NATIONAL  AID   TO  EDUCATION. 

And,  first,  we  propose,  without  any  change  in  the  present  land 
policy,  to  give  the  net  proceeds  of  the  public  lands  to  the  cause 
of  education.  During  the  last  fifteen  years  these  proceeds  have 
amounted  to  a  little  more  than  thirty-three  million  dollars,  or 
one  per  cent  of  the  entire  revenues  of  the  United  States  for  that 
period.  The  gift  is  not  great ;  but  yet,  in  one  view  of  the  case, 
it  is  princely.  To  dedicate  to  the  cause  of  education,  for  the 
future,  a  fund  which  is  now  one  per  cent  of  the  revenues  of 
the  United  States,  is,  to  my  mind,  a  great  thought,  and  I  am 
glad  to  give  it  my  indorsement.  It  seems  to  me  that  in  this 
act  we  shall  almost  copy  its  prototype  in  what  God  himself  has 
done  on  this  great  continent  of  ours.  In  the  centre  of  its  great 
est  breadth,  where  otherwise  there  might  be  a  desert  forever, 
he  has  planted  a  chain  of  the  greatest  lakes  on  the  earth ;  and 
the  exhalations  arising  from  their  pure  waters  every  day  come 
down  in  gracious  showers,  and  make  that  a  blooming  garden 
which  otherwise  might  be  a  desert  waste.  It  is  proposed  that 
the  proceeds  arising  from  the  sale  of  our  wilderness  lands,  like 
the  dew,  shall  fall  forever,  not  upon  the  lands,  but  upon  the 
minds  of  the  children  of  the  nation,  giving  them,  for  all  time  to 
come,  all  the  blessing  and  growth  and  greatness  that  education 
can  afford.  That  thought  —  I  say  it  again — is  a  great  one, 
worthy  of  a  great  nation ;  and  this  country  will  remember  the 
man  who  formulated  it  into  language,  and  will  remember  the 
Congress  that  made  it  law. 

The  other  point  is  one  of  even  greater  practical  value  and 
significance  just  now  than  the  one  to  which  I  have  referred.  It 
is  this:  How  is  this  great  gift  to  be  distributed?  We  propose 
to  give  it,  Mr.  Speaker,  through  our  American  system  of  edu 
cation  ;  and,  in  giving  it,  we  do  not  propose  to  mar  in  the  least 
degree  the  harmony  and  beauty  of  that  system.  If  we  did,  I 
should  be  compelled  to  give  my  voice  and  vote  against  the 
measure.  Here  and  now,  when  we  are  inaugurating  this  policy, 
I  desire  to  state  for  myself,  and,  as  I  believe,  for  many  who  sit 
around  me,  that  we  do  here  solemnly  protest  that  this  gift  is  not 
to  destroy  or  disturb  what  I  venture  to  call  our  great  American 
system  of  e'ducation,  but  is  rather  to  be  used  through  that  sys 
tem,  and  to  be  wholly  subordinated  to  it.  On  this  question  I 
have  been  compelled  heretofore  to  differ  from  many  friends 
of  education,  here  and  elsewhere,  —  many  who  think  it  wise 
for  Congress,  in  certain  contingencies,  to  take  charge  of  the 


NATIONAL  AID    TO   EDUCATION.  21 

system  of  education  in  the  States.  I  will  not  now  discuss  the 
constitutional  aspects  of  that  question ;  but  I  desire  to  say,  that 
all  the  philosophy  of  our  educational  system  forbids  that  we 
should  take  such  a  course. 

In  the  few  moments  awarded  to  me,  I  wish  to  make  an  appeal 
for  our  system  as  a  whole  as  against  any  other  known  to  me. 
We  look  sometimes  with  great  admiration  at  a  government  like 
Germany,  that  can  command  the  light  of  its  education  to  shine 
everywhere,  and  can  enforce  its  school  laws  everywhere,  through 
out  the  empire.  Under  our  system  we  do  not  rejoice  in  that, 
but  we  rather  rejoice  that  here  two  forces  play  with  all  their 
vast  power  in  the  field  of  education.  The  first  is  that  of  the 
local  municipal  authority  under  our  State  governments ;  there 
is  the  centre  of  responsibility;  there  is  the  chief  educational 
power ;  there  can  be  enforced  Luther's  great  thought  of  placing 
on  magistrates  the  duty  of  educating  children. 

Luther  was  the  first  to  perceive  that  Christian  schools  were 
an  absolute  necessity.  In  a  celebrated  paper  addressed  to  the 
municipal  councillors  of  the  Empire  in  1524,  he  demanded  the 
establishment  of  schools  in  all  the  villages  of  Germany.  To  tol 
erate  ignorance  was,  in  the  energetic  language  of  the  reformer, 
to  make  common  cause  with  the  Devil.  The  father  of  a  family 
who  abandoned  his  children  to  ignorance  was  a  consummate 
rascal.  Addressing  the  German  authorities,  he  said :  — 

"  Magistrates,  remember  that  God  formally  commands  you  to  instruct 
children.  This  Divine  commandment  parents  have  transgressed  by  in 
dolence,  by  lack  of  intelligence,  and  because  of  over  work.  The  duty 
devolves  upon  you,  magistrates,  to  call  fathers  to  their  duty,  and  to  pre 
vent  the  return  of  these  evils  which  we  suffer  to-day. 

"  Give  attention  to  your  children ;  many  parents  are  like  ostriches, 
....  content  to  have  laid  an  egg,  but  caring  for  it  no  longer.  Now, 
that  which  constitutes  the  prosperity  of  a  city  is  not  its  treasures,  its 
strong  walls,  its  beautiful  mansions,  and  its  brilliant  decorations.  The 
real  wealth  of  a  city,  its  safety  and  its  force,  is  an  abundance  of  citizens, 
instructed,  honest,  and  cultivated.  If  in  our  days  we  rarely  meet  such 
citizens,  whose  fault  is  it,  if  not  yours,  magistrates,  who  have  allowed 
our  youth  to  grow  up  like  neglected  shrubbery  in  the  forest  ?  Ignorance 
is  more  dangerous  for  a  people  than  the  armies  of  an  enemy." 

After  quoting  this  passage  from  Luther,  Laboulaye,  in  his  elo 
quent  essay  entitled,  L' Etat  et  ses  Limites,  says  :  "  This  famil 
iar  and  true  eloquence  was  not  lost.  There  is  not  a  Protestant 


22  NATIONAL   AID    TO   EDUCATION. 

country  which  has  not  placed  in  the  front  rank  of  its  duties  the 
establishment  and  maintenance  of  popular  schools."  J 

The  duties  enjoined  in  these  great  utterances  of  Luther  are 
recognized  to  the  fullest  extent  by  the  American  system.  But 
they  are  recognized  as  belonging  to  the  authorities  of  the  State, 
the  county,  the  township,  the  local  communities.  There  these 
obligations  may  be  urged  with  all  the  strength  of  their  high 
sanctions ;  there  may  be  brought  to  bear  all  the  patriotism,  all 
the  morality,  all  the  philanthropy,  all  the  philosophy,  of  our 
people ;  and  there  it  is  brought  to  bear  in  its  noblest  and  best 
forms. 

But  there  is  another  force  even  greater  than  that  of  the  State 
and  the  local  governments.  It  is  the  force  of  private  voluntary 
enterprise, — that  force  which  has  built  up  the  multitude  of  pri 
vate  schools,  academies,  and  colleges  throughout  the  United 
States,  not  always  wisely,  but  always  with  enthusiasm  and  won 
derful  energy.  I  say,  therefore,  that  our  local  self-government, 
joined  to  and  co-operating  with  private  enterprise,  has  made  the 
American  system  of  education  what  it  is. 

In  further  illustration  of  its  merits,  I  beg  leave  to  state  a  few 
facts  of  great  significance.  The  governments  of  Europe  are 
now  beginning  to  see  that  our  system  is  better  and  more  effi 
cient  than  theirs.  The  public  mind  of  England  is  now,  and  has 
been  for  several  years,  profoundly  moved  on  the  subject  of 
education.  Several  commissioners  have  lately  been  sent  by  the 
British  government  to  examine  the  school  systems  of  other 
countries,  and  lay  before  Parliament  the  results  of  their  investi 
gations,  so  as  to  enable  that  body  to  profit  by  the  experience  of 
other  nations. 

Rev.  J.  Frazier,  one  of  the  assistant  commissioners  appointed 
for  this  purpose,  visited  this  country  in  1865,  and  in  the  follow 
ing  year  made  his  report  to  Parliament.  While  he  found  much 
to  criticise  in  our  system  of  education,  he  did  not  withhold  his 
expressions  of  astonishment  at  the  important  part  which  private 
enterprise  played  in  our  system.  In  concluding  his  report,  he 
speaks  of  the  United  States  as  "  a  nation  of  which  it  is  no 
flattery  or  exaggeration  to  say,  that  it  is,  if  not  the  most  highly, 
yet  certainly  the  most  generally,  educated  and  intelligent  peo 
ple  on  the  globe." 

But  a  more  valuable  report  was  delivered  to  Parliament   in 

1  Pages  204,  205. 


NATIONAL   AID    TO   EDUCATION.  23 

1866,  by  Matthew  Arnold,  one  of  the  most  cultivated  and  pro 
found  thinkers  of  England.  He  was  sent  by  Parliament  to  ex 
amine  the  schools  and  universities  of  the  Continent;  and  after 
visiting  all  the  leading  states  of  Europe,  and  making  himself 
thoroughly  familiar  with  their  systems  of  education,  he  deliv 
ered  a  most  searching  and  able  report.  In  the  concluding 
chapter,  he  discusses  the  wants  of  England  on  the  subject  of 
education.  No  one  who  reads  that  chapter  can  fail  to  admire 
the  boldness  and  power  with  which  he  points  out  the  chief  ob 
stacles  to  popular  education  in  England.  He  exhibits  the 
significant  fact,  that,  while  during  the  last  half-century  there  has 
been  a  general  transformation  in  the  civil  organization  of  Euro 
pean  governments,  England  with  all  her  liberty  and  progress,  is 
shackled  with  what  he  calls  a  civil  organization,  which  is,  from 
the  top  to  the  bottom  of  it,  not  modern.  He  says :  — 

"  Transform  it  she  must,  unless  she  means  to  come  at  last  to  the  same 
sentence  as  the  church  of  Sardis  :  '  Thou  hast  a  name  that  thou  livest,  and 
art  dead.'  However,  on  no  part  of  this  immense  task  of  transformation 
have  I  now  to  touch,  except  on  that  part  which  relates  to  education. 
But  this  part,  indeed,  is  the  most  important  of  all ;  and  it  is  the  part 
whose  happy  accomplishment  may  render  that  of  all  the  rest,  instead  of 
being  troubled  and  difficult,  gradual  and  easy 

"  Obligatory  instruction  is  talked  of.  But  what  is  the  capital  difficulty 
in  the  way  of  obligatory  instruction,  or  indeed  any  national  system  of  in 
struction,  in  this  country?  It  is  this  :  that  the  moment  the  working-class 
of  this  country  have  this  question  of  instruction  really  brought  home  to 
them,  their  self-respect  will  make  them  demand,  like  the  working-classes 
on  the  Continent,  public  schools,  and  not  schools  which  the  clergyman, 
or  the  squire,  or  the  mill-owner,  calls  '  my  school.'  And  what  is  the  capi 
tal  difficulty  in  the  way  of  giving  them  public  schools  ?  It  is  this  :  that 
the  public  school  for  the  people  must  rest  upon  the  municipal  organ 
ization  of  the  country.  In  France,  Germany,  Italy,  Switzerland,  the 
public  elementary  school  has,  and  exists  by  having,  the  commune  and 
the  municipal  government  of  the  commune  as  its  foundations,  and  it 
could  not  exist  without  them.  But  we  in  England  have  our  munici 
pal  organization  still  to  get ;  the  country  districts,  with  us,  have  at 
present  only  the  feudal  and  ecclesiastical  organization  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  or  of  France  before  the  Revolution The  real  prelimi 
nary  to  an  effective  system  of  popular  education  is,  in  fact,  to  provide 
the  country  with  an  effective  municipal  organization ;  and  here,  then,  is  at 
the  outset  an  illustration  of  what  I  said,  that  modern  societies  need  a 
civil  organization  which  is  modern."  ! 

1  Schools  Inquiry  Commission,  Vol.  VT.  pp.  624,  625  (London,  1868). 


24  NATIONAL   AID    TO  EDUCATION. 

In  November,  1869,  a  report  was  made  to  the  Minister  of 
Public  Instruction,  by  M.  C.  Hippeau,  a  man  of  great  learning, 
and  who,  in  the  previous  year,  had  been  ordered  by  the  French 
government  to  visit  the  United  States  and  make  a  careful  study 
of  our  system  of  public  education.  In  summing  up  his  conclu 
sions  at  the  end  of  his  report,  he  expresses  opinions  which  are 
remarkable  for  their  boldness,  when  we  remember  the  char 
acter  of  the  French  government  at  that  time ;  and  his  recom 
mendations  have  a  most  significant  application  to  the  principle 
under  consideration.  I  translate  his  concluding  paragraphs :  — 

"  What  impresses  me  most  strongly  as  the  result  of  this  study  of  public 
instruction  in  the  United  States  is  the  admirable  power  of  private  enter 
prise  in  a  country  where  the  citizens  early  adopted  the  habit  of  foreseeing 
their  own  wants  for  themselves ;  of  meeting  together  and  acting  in  con 
cert  ;  of  combining  their  means  of  action  ;  of  determining  the  amount  of 
pecuniary  contribution  which  they  will  impose  upon  themselves,  and  of 
regulating  its  use  ;  and,  finally,  of  choosing  administrators  who  shall  ren 
der  them  an  account  of  the  resources  placed  at  their  disposal,  and  of  the 
use  which  they  may  make  of  their  authority 

"  The  marvellous  progress  made  in  the  United  States  during  the  last 
twenty  years  would  have  been  impossible  if  the  national  life,  instead  of 
being  manifested  on  all  points  of  the  surface,  had  been  concentrated  in 
a  capital,  under  the  pressure  of  a  strongly  organized  administration, 
which,  holding  the  people  under  constant  tutelage,  wholly  relieved  them 
from  the  care  of  thinking  and  acting  by  themselves  and  for  themselves. 

"  Will  France  enter  upon  that  path  of  decentralization  which  will  in 
fallibly  result  in  giving  a  scope  now  unknown  to  all  her  vital  forces,  and 
to  the  admirable  resources  which  she  possesses?  In  what  especially 
concerns  public  instruction,  shall  we  see  her  multiplying,  as  in  America, 
those  free  associations,  those  generous  donations,  which  will  enable  us 
to  place  public  instruction  on  the  broadest  foundation,  and  to  revive  in 
our  provinces  the  old  universities  that  will  become  more  flourishing  as 
the  citizens  shall  interest  themselves  directly  in  their  progress  ?  ....  To 
accomplish  this,  it  will  also  be  necessary  that  governments,  appreciating 
the  wants  of  their  epoch,  shall  with  good  grace  relinquish  a  part  of  the 
duties  now  imposed  upon  them,  and  aid  the  people  in  supporting  the 
rigid  regime  of  liberty,  by  enlarging  the  powers  of  the  municipal  councils 
and  of  the  councils  of  the  departments,  by  favoring  associations  and 
public  meetings,  by  opening  the  freest  field  to  the  examination  and  dis 
cussion  of  national  interests  ;  in  short,  by  deserving  the  eulogy  addressed 
by  a  man  of  genius  to  a  great  minister  of  France  :  '  Monseigneur,  you 
have  labored  ten  years  to  make  yourself  useless.' "  I 

1  Instruction  Publique  aux  £tats-Unis,  pp.  340-342   (Paris,  1870). 


NATIONAL   AID    TO  EDUCATION.  25 

I  have  made  these  citations  to  show  how  strongly  the  public 
thought  of  Europe  is  moving  toward  our  system  of  public  edu 
cation,  as  better  and  freer  than  theirs.  I  do  not  now  discuss 
the  broader  political  question  of  State  and  municipal  govern 
ment  as  contrasted  with  centralized  government.  I  am  consid 
ering  what  is  the  best  system  of  organizing  the  educational 
work  of  a  nation,  not  from  the  political  standpoint  alone,  but 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  schoolhouse  itself.  This  work  of 
public  education  partakes  in  a  peculiar  way  of  the  spirit  of  the 
human  mind  in  its  efforts  for  culture.  The  mind  must  be  as 
free  from  extraneous  control  as  possible,  —  must  work  under 
the  inspiration  of  its  own  desire  for  knowledge ;  and,  while 
instructors  and  books  are  necessary  helps,  the  fullest  and  high 
est  success  must  spring  from  the  power  of  self-help.  So  the 
best  system  of  education  is  that  which  draws  its  chief  support 
from  the  voluntary  effort  of  the  community,  from  the  individual 
efforts  of  citizens,  and  from  those  burdens  of  taxation  which 
they  voluntarily  impose  upon  themselves.  The  assistance  pro 
posed  in  this  bill  is  to  be  given  through  the  channels  of  this  our 
American  system.  The  amount  proposed  is  large  enough  to 
stimulate  to  greater  effort  and  to  general  emulation  the  different 
States  and  the  local  school  authorities,  but  not  large  enough  to 
carry  the  system  on,  and  to  weaken  all  these  forces  by  making 
the  friends  of  education  feel  that  the  work  is  done  for  them 
without  their  own  effort.  Government  will  be  only  a  help  to 
them  in  the  work  of  education,  not  a  commander. 

In  the  pending  bill,  we  disclaim  any  control  over  the  educa 
tional  system  of  the  States.  We  only  require  reports  of  what 
they  do  with  our  bounty;  and  those  reports,  brought  here  and 
published  for  the  information  of  the  people,  will  spread  abroad 
the  light,  and  awaken  the  enthusiasm  and  emulation  of  our 
people.  This  policy  is  in  harmony  with  the  act  of  1867  cre 
ating  the  Bureau  of  Education,  whose  fruits  have  already  been 
so  abundant  in  good  results.  I  hope  that  the  House  will  set 
its  seal  of  approval  on  our  American  system  of  education,  and 
will  adopt  this  mode  of  advancing  and  strengthening  it. 


DR.   SAMUEL   R   B.    MORSE. 


REMARKS   MADE    AT  THE   MORSE   MEMORIAL    MEETING,   HELD 
IN   THE   HALL  OF   THE   HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 

APRIL  16,  1872. 


THE  grave  has  just  closed  over  the  mortal  remains  of  one 
whose  name  will  be  forever  associated  with  a  series  of 
achievements  in  the  domain  of  discovery  and  invention  the 
most  wonderful  our  race  has  ever  known,  —  wonderful  in 
the  results  accomplished,  more  wonderful  still  in  the  agencies 
employed,  most  wonderful  in  the  scientific  revelations  which 
preceded  and  accompanied  their  development. 

The  electro-magnetic  telegraph  is  the  embodiment  —  I  might 
say  the  incarnation  —  of  many  centuries  of  thought,  of  many 
generations  of  effort  to  elicit  from  Nature  one  of  her  deepest 
mysteries.  No  one  man,  no  one  century,  could  have  achieved 
it.  It  is  the  child  of  the  human  race,  — "  the  heir  of  all  the 
ages."  How  wonderful  were  the  steps  which  led  to  its  creation ! 

The  very  name  of  this  telegraphic  instrument  bears  record 
of  its  history,  —  "electric,  magnetic";  the  first  word  from  the 
bit  of  yellow  amber,  whose  qualities  of  attraction  and  repulsion 
were  discovered  by  a  Grecian  philosopher  twenty-four  centuries 
ago,  and  the  second  from  Magnesia,  the  village  of  Asia  Minor 
where  first  was  found  the  loadstone  whose  touch  forever  turns 
the  needle  to  the  north.  These  were  the  earliest  forms  in  which 
that  subtle,  all-pervading  force  revealed  itself  to  men.  In  the 
childhood  of  the  race,  men  stood  dumb  in  the  presence  of  its 
more  terrible  manifestations.  When  it  gleamed  in  the  purple 
aurora,  or  shot  dusky-red  from  the  clouds,  it  was  the  eye-flash 
of  an  angry  God,  before  whom  mortals  quailed  in  helpless  fear. 
When  the  electric  light  burned  blue  on  the  spear-points  of  the 
Roman  legions,  it  was  to  them  and  their  leaders  a  portent  from 


DR.  SAMUEL  F.   B.  MORSE.  27 

the  gods,  beckoning  to  victory.  When  the  phosphorescent 
light,  which  the  sailors  still  call  St.  Elmo's  fire,  hovered  on  the 
masts  and  spars  of  the  Roman  ship,  it  was  Castor  and  Pollux, 
twin  gods  of  the  sea,  guiding  the  manner  to  port,  or  the  beacon 
of  an  avenging  god  luring  him  to  death. 

When  we  consider  the  startling  forms  in  which  this  element 
presents  itself,  it  is  not  surprising  that  so  many  centuries 
elapsed  before  man  dared  to  confront  and  question  its  awful 
mystery.  And  it  was  fitting  that  here,  in  this  new,  free  world, 
the  first  answer  came,  revealing  to  our  Franklin  the  great  truth, 
that  the  lightning  of  the  sky  and  the  electricity  of  the  labora 
tory  are  one,  —  that  in  the  simple  electric  toy  are  embodied  all 
the  mysteries  of  the  thunderbolt. 

Until  near  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  the  only 
known  method  of  producing  electricity  was  by  friction.  But 
the  discoveries  of  Galvani  in  1789,  and  of  Volta  in  1800,  re 
sulted  in  the  production  of  electricity  by  the  chemical  action  of 
acids  upon  metals,  and  gave  to  the  world  the  galvanic  battery, 
the  voltaic  pile,  and  the  electric  current.  This  was  the  first 
step  in  that  path  of  modern  discovery  which  led  to  the  tele 
graph.  But  further  discoveries  were  necessary  to  make  the 
telegraph  possible.  The  next  great  step  was  taken  by  Oersted, 
the  Swedish  Professor,  who,  in  1819—20,  made  the  discovery 
that  the  needle,  when  placed  near  the  galvanic  battery,  was 
deflected  at  right  angles  to  the  electric  current.  In  the  four 
modest  pages  in  which  Oersted  announced  this  discovery  to 
the  world,  the  science  of  electro-magnetism  was  founded.  As 
Franklin  had  exhibited  the  relation  between  lightning  and  the 
electric  fluid,  so  Oersted  exhibited  the  relation  between  magnet 
ism  and  electricity.  From  1820  to  1825  his  discovery  was  fur 
ther  developed  by  Davy  and  Sturgeon  of  England,  and  Arago 
and  Ampere  of  France.  They  found  that,  by  sending  a  current 
of  electricity  through  a  wire  coiled  around  a  piece  of  soft  iron, 
the  iron  became  a  magnet  while  the  current  was  passing,  and 
ceased  to  be  a  magnet  when  the  current  was  broken.  This 
gave  an  intermittent  power,  —  a  power  to  grapple  and  to  let  go, 
at  the  will  of  the  electrician.  Ampere  suggested  that  a  tele 
graph  was  possible  by  applying  this  power  to  a  needle.  In 
1825  Barlow  of  England  made  experiments  to  verify  this  sug 
gestion  of  the  telegraph,  and  pronounced  it  impracticable  on 
the  ground  that  the  batteries  then  used  would  not  send  the  fluid 


28  DR.    SAMUEL   F.   B.   MORSE. 

through  even  two  hundred  feet  of  wire  without  a  sensible  dimi 
nution  of  its  force.  In  1831  Joseph  Henry,  now  Secretary  of 
the  Smithsonian  Institution,  then  a  Professor  at  Albany,  New 
York,  as  the  result  of  numerous  experiments,  discovered  a 
method  by  which  he  produced  a  battery  of  such  intensity  as  to 
overcome  the  difficulty  spoken  of  by  Barlow  in  1825.  By 
means  of  this  discovery,  he  magnetized  soft  iron  at  a  great 
distance  from  the  battery,  pointed  out  the  fact  that  a  telegraph 
was  possible,  and  actually  rang  a  bell  by  means  of  the  electro 
magnet  acting  on  a  long  wire.  This  was  the  last  step  in  the 
series  of  great  discoveries  which  preceded  the  invention  of  the 
telegraph. 

When  these  discoveries  ended,  the  work  of  the  inventor  be 
gan.  It  was  in  1832,  the  year  that  succeded  the  last  of  these 
great  discoveries,  when  Professor  Morse  first  turned  his  thoughts 
to  that  work  whose  triumph  is  the  triumph  of  his  race.  He  had 
devoted  twenty-two  years  of  his  manhood  to  the  study  and 
practice  of  art.  He  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  the  great  masters  of 
Europe,  and  had  already,  by  his  own  works  of  art,  achieved  a 
noble  name ;  and  he  now  turned  to  the  grander  work  of  in 
terpreting  to  the  world  that  subtle  and  mysterious  element 
with  which  the  thinkers  of  the  human  race  had  so  long  been 
occupied. 

I  cannot  here  recount  the  story  of  that  long  struggle  through 
which  he  passed  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  great  result; 
how  he  struggled  with  poverty,  with  the  vast  difficulties  of  the 
subject  itself,  with  the  unfaith,  the  indifference,  and  the  con 
tempt  which  almost  everywhere  confronted  him;  how,  at  the 
very  moment  of  his  triumph,  he  was  on  the  verge  of  despair, 
when  in  this  very  Capitol  his  project  met  the  jeers  of  almost  a 
majority  of  the  national  legislature.  But  when  has  despair 
yielded  to  such  a  triumph?  When  has  such  a  morning  risen 
on  such  a  night?  To  all  cavillers  and  doubters  this  instrument 
and  its  language  are  a  triumphant  answer.  That  chainless 
spirit  which  fills  the  immensity  of  space  with  its  invisible  pres 
ence, — which  dwells  in  the  blaze  of  the  sun,  follows  the  path 
of  the  farthest  star,  and  courses  the  depths  of  earth  and  sea,  — 
that  mighty  spirit  has  at  last  yielded  to  the  human  will.  It  has 
entered  a  body  prepared  for  its  dwelling.  It  has  found  a  voice 
through  which  it  speaks  to  the  human  ear.  It  has  taken  its 
place  as  the  humble  servant  of  man ;  and  through  all  coming 


DR.   SAMUEL   F.   B.   MORSE.  29 

time  its  work  will  be  associated  with  the   name  and  fame  of 
Samuel  F.  B.  Morse. 

Were  there  no  other  proof  of  the  present  value  of  his  work, 
these  alone  would  suffice,  —  that  throughout  the  world,  what 
ever  the  language  or  the  dialect  of  those  who  use  it,  the  tele 
graph  speaks  a  language  whose  first  element  is  the  alphabet  of 
Morse;  and  in  1869,  of  the  sixteen  thousand  telegraphic  instru 
ments  used  on  the  lines  of  Europe,  thirteen  thousand  were  of 
the  pattern  invented  by  him.  The  future  of  this  great  achieve 
ment  can  be  measured  by  no  known  standards.  Morse  gave  us 
the  instrument  and  the  alphabet.  The  world  is  only  beginning 
to  spell  out  the  lesson,  whose  meaning  the  future  will  read. 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN  OF   1872. 

SPEECH   DELIVERED   AT   WARREN,   OHIO. 
JULY  31,  1872. 


TOWARDS  the  close  of  President  Grant's  first  administration,  a  consid 
erable  disaffection  appeared  in  the  Republican  party.  This  culminated 
in  the  nomination  for  the  Presidency,  at  Cincinnati,  in  June,  1872,  of 
Horace  Greeley,  by  a  so-called  Liberal-Republican  Convention,  and  also 
by  the  National  Democratic  Convention  at  Baltimore  in  July  following. 
The  Republicans  renominated  President  Grant.  The  following  is  the 
speech  in  which  Mr.  Garfield  opened  the  campaign,  delivered  before  the 
Convention  of  the  Nineteenth  Congressional  District,  which  had  just 
nominated  him  for  the  sixth  time  to  the  House  of  Representatives. 


GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  CONVENTION  AND  FELLOW-ClTIZENS, 
I  should  do  injustice  to  myself  if  I  did  not  in  the  strongest 
terms  express  my  gratitude  and  my  gratification  for  this  renewed 
proof  of  your  confidence  and  approval  in  unanimously  nominat 
ing  me  to  represent  this  district  in  the  Forty-third  Congress. 
Ten  years  ago,  while  I  was  with  the  army  in  the  field,  you  first 
chose  me  as  your  Representative  in  Congress.  The  period 
which  has  elapsed  since  then  has  been  filled  with  events  of  the 
most  important  and  startling  character.  The  problems  which 
have  confronted  the  national  legislature  have  been  of  more  than 
ordinary  difficulty;  but  through  them  all  I  have  enjoyed  the 
benefit  of  your  counsels  and  have  felt  the  strength  of  your  con 
stant  support.  You  have  never  asked  me  to  be  the  mere  echo 
of  the  party  voice,  or  the  unquestioning  follower  of  party  pol 
icy.  Few  Congressional  districts  have  a  nobler  record  than  this. 
With  no  city  in  its  limits  large  enough  to  attract  those  elements 
which  corrupt  and  poison  the  fountains  of  political  power;  with 
a  population  equally  removed  from  distressing  poverty  and  from 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL    CAMPAIGN  OF  1872.         31 

that  excess  of  wealth  which  sometimes  brings  with  it  a  disre 
gard  of  the  rights  and  interests  of  others ;  with  a  high  average 
of  intelligence,  and  habits  of  reading  and  independently  judg 
ing  of  public  affairs,  —  the  people  of  this  district,  for  more  than 
half  a  century,  have  held  and  expressed  bold  and  independent 
opinions  on  all  public  questions.  During  that  whole  period 
they  have  supported  and  defended  their  representative  in  main 
taining  an  independent  position  in  the  national  legislature,  and 
whenever  he  has  acted  with  honest  and  intelligent  courage  in 
the  interests  of  truth,  they  have  generously  sustained  him,  even 
when  he  has  differed  from  them  in  minor  matters  of  opinion 
and  policy.  Another  circumstance  is  also  "worthy  of  notice. 
There  is  in  this  district  no  one  great  interest  which  overshadows 
all  others,  and  compels  its  representative  to  become  the  special 
advocate  of  one  interest  to  the  neglect  of  all  others.  This  is  a 
national  constituency.  That  course  of  legislation  and  administra 
tion  which  will  best  subserve  the  interests  of  the  whole  country 
will  also  best  subserve  the  interests  of  the  people  of  this  district. 

You  can  hardly  realize  what  confidence  and  strength  it  gives 
a  representative  to  know  that  he  has  such  a  district  behind 
him.  It  enables  him  to  aid  in  maintaining  for  the  national 
legislature  that  position  of  independent  judgment  which  holds 
undisturbed  the  balance  of  power  between  the  co-ordinate 
branches  of  the  government.  It  is  not  in  accordance  with  the 
spirit  of  our  government  that  representatives  should  be  chosen 
on  the  merits  or  demerits  of  the  President,  or  of  any  party 
leader,  nor  should  an  Executive  be  chosen  to  share  his  powers 
with  members  of  Congress.  It  was  the  anxious  care  of  the 
founders  of  this  republic  that  the  co-ordinate  branches  of  the 
government  should  each,  as  far  as  possible,  be  independent 
in  its  own  sphere.  The  independence  of  the  legislature  de 
pends  upon  the  independent  action  of  its  members,  and  that  in 
turn  upon  the  independent  character  and  spirit  of  the  people 
who  choose  them.  The  discussion  of  this  topic  leads  me  to 
consider  a  subject  which  at  the  present  moment  occupies  the 
front  rank  in  national  questions,  and  on  which  much  will  be 
said  on  both  sides  during  the  coming  campaign ;  I  allude  to  the 
reform  in  our  civil  service. 

No  man  whose  vision  is  not  utterly  blinded  by  partisan  feel 
ing  will  deny  that  our  civil  service  has  fallen  far  below  the  high 
place  which  the  founders  intended  it  should  occupy;  and  it  is 


32          THE  PRESIDENTIAL    CAMPAIGN  OF  1872. 

no  doubt  true  that  the  doctrine  of  "  spoils,"  introduced  in  the 
days  of  Jackson,  has  been  the  chief  motive  power  in  dishonor 
ing  and  degrading  that  service.  But  a  careful  study  of  the  sub 
ject  has  led  me  to  conclude  that  at  the  present  moment  another 
element  is  at  work  even  more  dangerous  than  the  doctrine  of 
"  spoils  "  ;  it  is  the  tendency  of  the  different  departments  of  the 
government  to  interfere  with  the  independence  of  each  other. 
While  it  is  made  the  constitutional  duty  of  the  President  to  rec 
ommend  to  Congress  such  measures  as  he  considers  for  the 
public  good,  it  was  never  intended  that  he  should  dictate  to 
Congress  the  policy  of  the  government,  nor  use  the  power  of 
his  great  office  to  force  upon  Congress  his  own  peculiar  views 
of  legislation.  The  tendency  to  do  this,  beginning  in  the  days 
of  Jackson,  had  a  steady  growth  until  its  culmination  in  the  ad 
ministration  of  Andrew  Johnson,  when  adherence  to  his  policy 
of  reconstruction  was  made  the  test  of  party  fealty  and  the 
ground  of  all  Executive  favors.  The  effort  to  impeach  Johnson 
was  really  an  effort  to  protect  Congress  against  the  unlawful  en 
croachments  of  Executive  power.  Curiously  enough,  since  1867 
a  strong  tendency  has  been  developed  in  the  opposite  direction, 
and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  we  are  now  in  greater  dan 
ger  of  disturbing  the  balance  and  distribution  of  powers,  by  the 
interference  of  Congress  with  the  Executive  office,  than  we  were 
in  the  days  of  Johnson  from  Executive  usurpation. 

By  the  provisions  of  the  Civil  Tenure  Act  the  President  cannot 
remove  an  officer  even  for  the  worst  of  crimes ;  he  can  only  sus 
pend  him  until  the  Senate  approves  or  disapproves  the  nomina 
tion  of  a  successor.  This  has  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Senate 
so  much  control  over  Executive  appointments  that  it  has  at  last 
resulted  in  a  custom,  now  rigidly  followed  by  the  Senate,  not 
to  confirm  a  nomination  for  an  office  in  any  State  unless  the 
Administration  Senator  from  that  State  approves.  This  sub 
stantially  subjects  the  President  to  the  dictation  of  the  Senators 
and  Representatives  in  whose  State  he  wishes  to  make  an  ap 
pointment.  Thus  his  action  is  virtually  no  longer  free ;  his  ap 
pointments  must  be  the  result  of  compromise  with  the  Senators 
and  members ;  and  yet,  under  our  theory  of  government,  the 
President  is  held  responsible  for  the  character  of  the  officers  he 
appoints.  Bad  appointments  have  been  made  under  the  pres 
ent  Administration,  but  most  of  them  have  been  made  under 
the  conditions  I  have  named. 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL    CAMPAIGN  OF  1872.         33 

Mr.  Greeley  insists  that  the  first  step  toward  civil  service  re 
form  is  the  adoption  of  the  one-term  principle,  by  which  the 
prospect  of  a  re-election  shall  be  removed  from  the  Executive ; 
but  if  I  am  right  in  the  views  already  expressed,  the  first  step 
toward  reform  lies  farther  back,  and  must  be  the  restoration 
of  that  independence  to  the  legislative  and  executive  depart 
ments  respectively  which  the  Constitution  requires.  Let  it  once 
be  fixed  and  understood  that  neither  Senators  nor  Represent 
atives,  singly  or  combined,  can  dictate  appointments  to  the 
Executive,  and  then  again,  as  in  former  days,  the  whole  re 
sponsibility  of  the  selection  of  officers  will  justly  rest  upon  the 
President  and  the  heads  of  departments.  No  time  should  be 
lost  in  inaugurating  this  reform. 

Many  citizens  and  a  few  Senators  and  Representatives  have 
sustained  the  President  in  his  attempts  to  reform  the  civil  ser 
vice.  He  has  undertaken  to  establish  a  body  of  rules  by  which 
selections  for  office  shall  be  made  on  the  ground  of  personal 
merit  and  fitness  for  the  public  service.  But  many  members 
of  Congress  of  both  parties  have  denounced  the  attempt,  and 
loaded  it  with  all  the  odium  they  could  command.  I  have 
done  what  I  could  to  sustain  the  President  in  this  effort;  and 
though  something  has  been  accomplished,  yet  I  am  satisfied 
that  no  plan  of  competitive  examination  or  advisory  boards  can 
cure  the  evil  until  the  Executive  is  left  free  and  untrammelled  in 
the  exercise  of  his  constitutional  powers,  and  is  held  to  a  strict 
responsibility  for  the  result  of  his  action.  During  the  debate 
on  the  appropriation  to  carry  into  effect  his  plan  of  civil  ser 
vice  reform,  I  called  on  the  President  in  company  with  my 
colleague,  Hon.  A.  F.  Perry,  of  Cincinnati,  and  had  a  full  con 
versation  on  the  subject.  The  President  expressed  an  earnest 
desire  to  better  the  condition  of  the  service,  but  it  was  easy  to 
see  that  with  him  the  chief  obstacles  in  the  way  of  success  were 
those  to  which  I  have  alluded.  No  mere  change  of  adminis 
tration  will  solve  the  difficulty.  Mr.  Greeley  himself  has  lately 
said  that  in  the  case  of  his  election  he  shall  make  no  differ 
ence  between  his  Republican  and  Democratic  supporters  in  his 
appointments  to  office,  thus  tacitly  admitting  that  the  offices 
of  the  government  are  to  be  for  his  supporters.  That  is  no 
civil  service  reform. 

Turning  from  these  general  reflections,  I  now  call  attention 
to  the  more  striking  features  of  the  campaign  now  opening.  If 

VOL.  ii.  3 


34         THE  PRESIDENTIAL   CAMPAIGN  OF  1872. 

we  were  to  judge  alone  by  the  platforms  of  the  opposing  par 
ties,  we  might  be  in  doubt  whether  this  campaign  is  a  con 
test  for  principles  or  a  mere  struggle  between  men.  The  battle 
has  already  begun  in  a  spirit  of  unusual  violence,  and  bids  fair 
to  be  as  fierce  and  disreputable  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  car 
ried  on  as  any  we  have  ever  witnessed.  Neither  candidate 
ought  to  be  elected  by  force  of  the  abuse  heaped  upon  him  by 
his  adversaries ;  but  the  issues  deserve  to  be  discussed  with 
manly  fairness  and  justice.  Unless  the  Democratic  Convention 
soon  to  meet  in  Louisville  shall  put  another  candidate  in  the 
field,  the  choice  for  the  Presidency  will  lie  between  General 
Grant  and  Horace  Greeley.  The  relative  merits  of  the  two 
men,  the  spirit,  character,  and  opinions  of  the  parties  repre 
sented  by  each,  and  the  dangers  to  be  apprehended  from  the 
accession  to  power  of  one  or  the  other  of  those  parties,  are  fair 
matters  of  discussion.  No  doubt  each  candidate  is  open  to 
criticisms  more  or  less  severe.  No  doubt  each  party  can  be 
justly  charged  with  errors  of  judgment  and  faults  of  conduct 
and  of  principle.  All  these  are  legitimate  topics  of  debate,  and 
must  be  considered  in  making  an  intelligent  choice.  For  myself 
I  prefer  General  Grant  and  the  party  which  has  put  him  in 
nomination,  to  Horace  Greeley  and  the  party  which  supports 
him.  I  shall  indicate  briefly  the  reasons  for  this  preference. 

The  first  is  found  in  the  past  career  of  the  two  parties. 
While  it  is  true  that  no  party  can  stand  on  its  record  alone, 
yet  it  is  also  true  that  its  record  shows  the  spirit  and  character 
of  the  organization,  and  enables  us  to  judge  what  it  will  proba 
bly  do  in  the  future.  The  most  ardent  defender  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party  will  not  deny  that  during  the  last  twelve  years  the 
history  of  that  party  has  been  a  record  of  repeated  failures ;  of 
doctrines  strenuously  advocated,  but  soon  after  exploded  and 
abandoned ;  of  measures  recommended  to  the  nation  but  re 
jected  as  unworthy  of  adoption,  and  now  no  longer  finding  any 
considerable  number  of  supporters  even  in  the  party  itself.  It 
will  perhaps  be  said  by  some  defender  of  the  new  movement 
that  the  party  now  in  the  field  against  the  Republican  party  is 
no  longer  the  Democracy  which  we  have  fought  for  the  last 
twelve  years.  They  may  say  in  the  exuberance  of  their  hopes 
for  the  future,  as  Senator  Schurz  said  in  his  St.  Louis  speech  a 
few  days  since  :  "  The  Democratic  party  no  longer  recognizes 
itself.  ....  It  has  been  swallowed  up  by  the  new  era 


THE   PRESIDENTIAL   CAMPAIGN  OF  1872.         35 

No  party  can  do  what  the  Democratic  party  has  done  without 

dropping  its  historical  identity It  cannot  return  to  its 

old  grooves ;  that  is  impossible ;  the  first  attempt  would  shiver 
it  to  atoms."  This  view  of  the  brilliant  Senator  from  Missouri 
would  be  possible  if  the  Democratic  party  had,  by  any  act  or 
admission  of  its  own,  consented  to  dissolve  its  organization. 
But  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  this  very  month  the  Democracy 
assembled  in  convention  at  Baltimore,  with  a  full  body  of  dele 
gates  from  each  State  and  from  each  Congressional  district  of 
the  Union ;  that  the  call  for  this  convention  was  strictly  to  the 
Democracy,  —  a  call  to  a  convention  to  which  none  but  Demo 
crats  were  invited;  that  its  organization  and  proceedings  were 
regular  in  every  respect ;  that  in  the  adoption  of  a  platform  it 
had  before  it  all  the  time-honored  principles  of  Democracy, 
from  the  days  of  Jackson  down,  from  which  to  select ;  and  the 
fact  that  it  adopted  a  platform  made  by  its  late  enemies,  which 
contradicted  every  important  doctrine  put  forth  by  the  party  for 
the  last  ten  years,  proves  nothing  more  than  that  it  has  chosen 
to  try  new  doctrines  in  the  hope  of  better  success.  Let  it  not 
be  forgotten  that  in  nominating  a  candidate  it  had  the  whole 
field  of  Democratic  statesmen  from  which  to  choose.  The  fact 
that  it  chose  for  its  candidate  a  man  who  has  been  for  forty 
years  its  most  conspicuous  enemy  is  by  no  means  an  acknowl- 
edgme'nt  that  it  has  dissolved  its  organization,  but  only  that 
it  has  'chosen  to  wear  a  mask,  and  put  on  the  uniform  of  its 
enemy  as  a  stratagem  of  war.  Even  if  twenty  per  cent  of  the 
supporters  of  Horace  Greeley  should  be  those  who  have 
hitherto  acted  with  the  Republican  party,  the  significant  fact 
will  still  remain  that  eighty  out  of  every  hundred  of  his  sup 
porters  will  be  Democrats  of  the  old  school,  acting  through  an 
unbroken  organization,  and  inevitably  controlling  the  policy  of 
the  new  party.  Twenty-seven  hundred  thousand  Democrats 
voted  for  the  Democratic  candidate  at  the  Presidential  election 
of  1868 ;  and  it  will  be  vain  and  idle  for  a  few,  or  even  for  many 
thousand  Republicans,  to  hope  that  they  can  leaven  this  enor 
mous  lump  and  convert  it,  from  what  they  know  it  has  so  long 
been,  into  an  earnest,  unselfish,  pure,  and  patriotic  party.  If 
the  new  movement  had  been  preceded  by  an  actual  formal  dis 
solution  of  the  Democracy,  and  the  formation  of  a  new  party, 
there  might  have  been  reasonable  grounds  for  expecting  a  bet 
ter  result.  But  I  fear  that  our  Republican  friends  who  have 


36         THE  PRESIDENTIAL    CAMPAIGN  OF  1872. 

gone  into  it  will  find  themselves  like  those  ancient  travellers 
who  entered  the  cave  of  the  sorcerer  hoping  to  seize  and  sub 
jugate  him,  but  were  themselves  robbed  and  enslaved  by  the 
giants  of  the  cave.  I  ask  these  Republicans  whether  they  have 
full  confidence  that  the  great  Democratic  party,  \^ose  alliance 
they  now  seek,  really  intends,  as  it  declares  in  its  platform,  to 
"  recognize  the  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law,  without  re 
gard  to  race  or  color,"  and  to  "  resist  any  reopening  of  ques 
tions  settled  by  the  late  amendments  to  the  Constitution." 
What  do  they  see  in  the  past  conduct  of  that  party  to  give 
them  any  such  assurance?  Do  they  believe  that  that  party, 
which  has  long  assailed  the  sanctity  of  our  public  credit,  will  now 
insist  that  it  "  shall  be  sacredly  maintained  "?  Do  they  really 
believe  that  the  party,  so  many  of  whose  members  followed  Mr. 
Pendleton  in  his  theory  of  greenback  expansion,  will  now  insist 
on  a  speedy  return  to  specie  payments?  If  they  believe  all  these 
things,  as  promised  in  the  platform,  I  can  only  say  that  they 
will  have  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  the  age  of  miracles  is 
about  to  return.  Let  the  old  members  of  the  Liberty  party, 
who  for  forty  years  have  struggled  through  evil  and  through 
good  report  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the  colored  race,  but 
who  now  join  the  new  movement,  call  upon  their  colored  fellow- 
citizens  north  and  south  to  trust  their  new-found  liberties  to 
the  hands  of  that  great  party  from  whom  it  has  been  wrenched 
after  the  struggle  of  a  bloody  war;  and  when  they  have  con 
vinced  the  colored  man  that  safety  lies  in  that  new  fold,  I  shall 
begin  to  have  faith  in  the  movement.  You  may  promise  the 
colored  man  your  support  and  the  support  of  the  new  party, 
but  can  you  keep  your  contract  ? 

Before  leaving  this  review  of  the  past  I  will  say  I  rejoice  that 
the  Democracy  has  at  last,  in  words  at  least,  abandoned  its  old 
doctrines  of  disunion  and  obstruction,  even  though  it  still  main 
tains  its  organization.  I  rejoice  that  the  principles  for  which 
the  nation  has  struggled  so  long  and  so  earnestly  are  at  last 
admitted  even  by  their  most  strenuous  opposers.  So  much  at 
least  is  gained. 

From  the  career  of  the  Democracy  I  turn  to  the  record  of 
the  Republican  party.  Its  most  violent  enemy  will  not  deny 
that  during  the  last,  twelve  years  the  Republican  party  has 
done  a  great  and  noble  work  in  defending  the  life  of  the  na 
tion  and  the  rights  of  its  citizens.  Nor  will  it  be  denied  that 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL    CAMPAIGN  OF  1872.         37 

every  great  and  good  achievement  in  the  interests  of  the  Union 
and  of  personal  liberty  has  been  effected  against  the  most 
strenuous  opposition  of  the  Democratic  party.  Each  gain  for 
the  interest  of  the  nation  and  the  liberty  of  its  citizens  has  been 
preceded  by  successful  battle  with  the  Democracy.  Problems 
of  unusual  difficulty  growing  out  of  the  war  have  confronted 
the  Republican  party  at  every  step  of  its  career.  Here  and 
there  great  mistakes  have  been  committed,  but  on  the  whole  its 
work  has  been  nobly  done,  and  the  condition  of  the  nation  has 
been  greatly  bettered  in  consequence  of  its  efforts. 

If  we  consider  the  history  of  the  party  during  President  Grant's 
administration  only,  still  it  may  truthfully  be  said  that  there  has 
been  much  good  work  done,  and  much  progress  made.  In  the 
matter  of  our  foreign  relations,  while  the  policy  in  reference  to 
San  Domingo  may  justly  be  criticised,  and  while  the  attempt 
to  acquire  that  island  was,  in  my  judgment,  unwise,  yet  on  the 
whole  the  general  results  of  our  foreign  policy  have  been  fairly 
good.  The  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  though  made  under  cir 
cumstances  of  great  difficulty,  is  now  reaching  a  satisfactory 
conclusion,  honorable  alike  to  both  nations,  and  in  its  mode  of 
settlement  a  credit  to  human  nature. 

The  Indian  policy  of  the  government,  judged  by  any  fair 
rules  of  criticism,  has  been  a  commendable  success.  Formerly 
the  Indians  were  scattered  through  the  Western  territories  in 
predatory  bands,  alarming  the  settlers  and  making  the  frontiers 
everywhere  unsafe.  During  the  last  three  years  eighty  thou 
sand  of  these  roaming  Indians  have  been  gathered  upon  reser 
vations,  making  in  all  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  that  are 
now  thus  located  and  are  supporting  themselves  without  aid 
from  the  government.  One  hundred  and  thirteen  thousand 
more  are  now  at  the  various  agencies,  supported  in  part  by 
the  government.  Fifty  or  sixty  agents,  representatives  of  the 
churches  of  the  country,  together  with  a  force  of  several  hun 
dred  blacksmiths,  carpenters,  farmers,  millers,  and  teachers,  are 
now  aiding  these  tribes  in  the  work  of  becoming  civilized  and 
self-supporting.  Only  fifty  thousand  Indians  are  still  roam 
ing,  and  during  the  coming  year  nearly  all  of  them  will  have 
been  placed  on  reservations  or  at  agencies  where  they  can 
choose  between  civilization,  with  its  accompanying  blessings, 
and  that  barbarism  which  will  lead  them  to  final  extinction. 

But  perhaps   no   department  of  administration  furnishes   so 


38         THE  PRESIDENTIAL   CAMPAIGN  OF  1872. 

complete  and  searching  a  test  of  the  wisdom  or  folly  of  a  gov 
ernment  as  the  management  of  financial  affairs.  Government 
is  a  great  machine,  and  no  motion  can  be  made,  no  function  ex 
ercised,  which  does  not  cost  money.  This  motive  power  must 
be  supplied  by  taxation.  The  taxes  must  be  collected  and  the 
moneys  expended  by  the  executive  department  of  the  govern 
ment.  There  can  scarcely  be  conceived  a  form  of  official  cor 
ruption  which  will  not  exhibit  itself  sooner  or  later  in  the  public 
expenditures.  Here,  then,  is  the  place  to  look  for  maladminis 
tration.  While  I  do  not  assert  that  the  financial  administration 
of  the  government  is  free  from  faults,  I  do  assert,  with  the  ut 
most  confidence,  that  on  the  whole  the  taxes  have  been  levied, 
the  revenues  collected,  and  the  public  moneys  expended,  with 
conspicuous  wisdom  and  honesty. 

While  the  burdens  of  taxation  laid  upon  the  people  in  con 
sequence  of  the  war  have  been  very  heavy,  there  has  never 
theless  been  a  steady  and  constant  reduction  of  that  burden 
since  the  close  of  the  war.  Since  July,  1866,  taxes  have  been 
abolished  which  were  producing  at  the  time  of  their  repeal 
$310,000,000.  The  internal  revenue  system,  which  grew  out  of 
the  war,  the  burdens  of  which  rested  on  almost  every  product  of 
industry,  has  now  been  so  reduced  by  the  act  of  June  last  and 
preceding  acts,  that  all  forms  of  internal  taxation  are  now  abol 
ished  except  taxes  on  liquors,  tobacco,  banks  and  bankers,  and 
stamps  on  patent  medicines  and  on  checks.  The  form  in  which 
the  late  law  leaves  the  system  will  go  far  toward  abolishing  the 
bureau.  While  this  great  reduction  in  taxation  has  been  going 
on,  the  expenditures  of  the  government  have  diminished  until 
they  are  now  more  than  a  hundred  million  dollars  less  than  they 
were  when  the  present  administration  came  into  power;  and 
during  the  same  time  the  principal  of  the  public  debt  has  been 
reduced  by  the  sum  of  $334,000,000. 

It  has  been  my  duty,  as  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Appropriations,  to  study  carefully  during  the  past  session  of 
Congress  the  expenditures  in  the  various  departments  of  the 
government.  This  committee  consists  of  Republican  and  Dem 
ocratic  members,  and  I  know  I  shall  not  be  successfully  con 
tradicted  when  I  say  that  the  government  is  now  managed  with 
marked  and  rigid  economy.  From  a  careful  analysis  of  the 
expenditures  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1871,  I  find 
that  of  the  $291,500,000  expended  during  the  yt:ar  $175,500,000 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN  OF  1872.         39 

was  for  expenditures  directly  growing  out  of  the  late  war,  leav 
ing  but  $116,000,000  for  all  other  expenditures  of  the  govern 
ment  ;  and  even  of  this  amount  a  considerable  portion  resulted 
indirectly  from  the  war.  During  the  fiscal  year  just  closed  the 
total  expenditures  were  $227,500,000,  being  nearly  fifteen  mil 
lions  less  than  for  the  previous  year.  During  the  last  four  years 
the  public  credit  has  been  greatly  enhanced  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  and  on  the  whole  it  can  be  said,  with  entire  justice,  that 
the  industrial  interests  of  the  country  have  been  steadily  and 
rapidly  improving. 

On  this  point  I  cite  the  testimony  of  Hon.  James  Brooks,  a 
leading  Democrat  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  On  the 
3  ist  of  January  last,  speaking  in  the  House  of  the  public  credit, 
he  said :  "  The  action  of  Congress  upon  this  subject  has  lifted 
the  public  credit  to  an  enviable  position  throughout  the  whole 
world.  Just  before  the  close  of  the  war  our  government  was 
borrowing  money  at  twelve  per  cent.  After  the  peace  the  rate 
of  interest  rapidly  fell  to  seven  per  cent.  In  1869  it  fell  to 
six  per  cent;  in  1870,  to  five  and  a  half  per  cent;  and  before 
the  end  of  1871  it  fell  to  a  small  fraction  more  than  five  per 
cent.  The  interest  upon  the  public,  debt  has  been  rapidly  going 
down.  I  said  in  this  House  two  years  ago,  ....  that  in  my 
judgment,  such  was  the  rising  credit  of  the  country,  there  would 
be  no  difficulty,  if  time  could  only  be  given,  in  negotiating  the 
whole  public  debt  of  this  country  at  the  rate  of  four  per  cent  per 
annum."  1  This  is  honorable  and  weighty  testimony.  I  insist 
that  these  facts  cannot  be  explained  away,  nor  are  they  consist 
ent  with  any  allegation  of  general  mismanagement  and  corrup 
tion.  They  are  honorable  to  the  Congress  and  the  Executive  to 
whose  care  the  financial  affairs  of  the  country  were  committed. 

With  this  review  of  the  career  and  organization  of  the  two 
parties,  as  they  now  present  themselves  before  the  country,  I  am 
warranted  in  affirming  that  it  is  safe  and  wise  to  trust  the  Re 
publican  organization,  and  that  it  is  both  dangerous  and  unwise 
to  commit  the  fortunes  of  the  country  to  the  Democracy  and 
its  new  allies. 

In  the  second  place,  I  find  a  reason  for  my  choice  in  the  char 
acter  and  supporters  of  the  two  candidates.  That  both  are 
entitled  to  much  credit  for  what  they  have  done,  and  that  both 
have  faults,  must  be  admitted.  No  amount  of  detraction  can 

1  Congressional  Globe,  January  31,  1872,  p.  746. 


40         THE  PRESIDENTIAL   CAMPAIGN  OF  1872. 

cover  up  or  obscure  the  fact  that  General  Grant  rendered  to  the 
country  great  and  illustrious  service  during  its  struggle  for  the 
Union.  No  amount  of  hostile  criticism  can  obliterate  the  fact 
that  he  persevered  and  exhibited  high  and  masterly  qualities  as 
a  leader  in  the  field,  and  that  his  personal  services  were  of  in 
estimable  value  to  the  nation.  That  his  administration  of  the 
government  during  the  last  four  years  has  been  on  the  whole 
successful,  is  a  fact  I  have  already  fairly  established ;  that  he 
has  made  mistakes  in  administration  will  not  be  denied.  There 
have  been  unfortunate  divisions  and  antagonisms  among  his 
supporters,  and  much  of  this  antagonism  has  assumed  the  form 
of  personal  hostility  to  him.  For  these  reasons  many  thoughtful 
Republicans  were  opposed  to  his  renomination.  But  it  is  unde 
niably  true  that  the  great  mass  of  the  Republican  party  believed 
it  wisest  to  continue  him  at  the  head  of  the  government.  They 
know  his  record  in  war,  and  his  conduct  in  peace ;  and  they 
believe  that  a  continuation  of  his  administration  will  result  in  a 
continuation  of  the  general  prosperity  of  the  country.  His  four 
years  of  experience  have  enabled  him  better  to  understand  the 
wants  of  the  country  and  the  duties  of  his  office,  and  we  have 
the  authority  of  Mr.  Greeley  for  saying  that  Grant  will  be  far 
better  qualified  for  his  great  office  in  1872  than  he  was  in  1868. 
Few  Americans  have  been  assailed  with  more  partisan  and  per 
sonal  malignity,  and  few,  if  any,  have  rendered  the  nation  such 
illustrious  service.  Let  any  fair  man  strike  a  balance  between 
his  merits  and  his  demerits,  and  then  compare  the  result  with  a 
similar  estimate  of  Horace  Greeley! 

Let  us  consider  the  comparison.  In  doing  so  I  make  no 
assault  on  Mr.  Greeley.  I  will  in  no  wise  detract  from  the 
great  service  he  has  rendered  to  the  cause  of  liberty,  nor  from 
the  fame  he  has  earned.  He  has  established  a  great  public 
journal,  and  has  placed  himself  almost  if  not  quite  at  the  head 
of  his  profession.  But  have  these  achievements  fitted  him  for 
the  Presidency  of  the  United  States?  Horace  Greeley  at  the 
head  of  the  Tribune,  as  the  popular  advocate  of  equal  rights,  is 
one  thing ;  Horace  Greeley  at  the  head  of  the  Democratic  party, 
to  conduct  the  affairs  of  the  nation,  is  quite  another.  In  that 
position  we  should  see  the  head  and  face  of  an  old  friend  rest 
ing  on  the  shoulders  and  body  of  an  old  and  relentless  enemy, 
guided  by  his  heart,  life,  and  activity.  It  is  idle  to  suppose  that 
any  man  can  conduct  an  administration  with  any  success  unless 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL    CAMPAIGN  OF  1872.         41 

he  does  it  in  general  and  substantial  concurrence  with  the  opin 
ions  and  aspirations  of  those  who  elected  him.  If  Mr.  Greeley 
continues  to  be,  in  any  considerable  degree,  the  man  he  has 
been  hitherto,  in  case  of  his  election,  the  gap  between  himself 
and  the  great  body  of  his  supporters  will  yawn  wider  than 
Erebus,  and  in  it  will  be  swallowed  all  peace  and  harmony  of 
administration.  On  the  first  day  of  his  term  he  will  be  con 
fronted  by  a  hungry  throng  of  office-seekers,  who  will  demand 
the  place  of  every  man  now  in  office  who  did  not  support 
him  as  a  candidate.  If  he  declares  that  political  differences  of 
opinion  shall  be  no  cause  for  removal,  he  begins  a  battle  with 
overwhelming  odds  against  him.  If  he  yields,  no  result  is  pos 
sible  but  complete  submission  to  the  Democracy.  It  has  been 
urged,  with  some  truth,  that  Grant  has  made  bad  appointments  ; 
I  ask  if  there  is  anything  in  Mr.  Greeley's  knowledge,  or  in  the 
kind  of  men  with  whom  he  has  long  associated  in  the  politics  of 
New  York,  that  promises  better  results?  Let  his  present  Tam 
many  supporters  answer. 

But  even  if  he  should  be  able  to  mould  and  guide  in  accord 
ance  with  his  own  views  the  discordant  party  which  elects  him, 
what  sort  of  guidance  will  that  be?  What  public  man  in  the 
United  States  has  been  less  stable  and  constant  in  his  opin 
ions  and  judgment  than  Horace  Greeley?  Who  does  not  know 
that  during  the  great  struggle  for  the  national  life,  when  the 
country  needed  the  steady  and  persistent  bending  of  every 
energy  to  the  one  great  work  of  attacking  secession  and  subdu 
ing  rebellion,  while  Grant  was  resisting  the  one  and  fighting  the 
other  with  undeviating  purpose,  Horace  Greeley  was  passing 
through  all  the  changes  of  opinion,  from  his  early  recommen 
dation  to  let  the  South  go,  to  his  fierce  and  reckless  "  On  to 
Richmond "  cry,  —  from  his  resistance  to  the  re-election  of 
Lincoln,  to  his  negotiations  with  the  Rebel  agents  at  Niagara? 
What  business  man  can  review  the  financial  opinions  of  Mr. 
Greeley,  as  vehemently  advocated  during  the  last  six  years, 
without  a  feeling  of  apprehension  and  alarm  at  even  the  remote 
prospect  of  such  opinions  being  entertained  by  the  chief  Exec 
utive  of  the  nation,  with  the  opportunity  for  enforcing  them  in 
the  practical  administration  of  the  government?  Doubtless  a 
majority  of  our  citizens  desire  a  resumption  of  specie  payments, 
brought  about  by  a  safe  and  careful  policy;  but  who  can  con 
template  without  alarm  the  possibility  of  seeing  a  notice  that  the 


42         THE  PRESIDENTIAL   CAMPAIGN  OF  1872. 

Secretary  has  resumed  specie  payments  put  up  some  morning 
over  the  door  of  the  Treasury,  and  that  the  fifty  millions  of  sur 
plus  gold  in  the  Treasury  marks  the  extent  of  his  resources 
for  maintaining  that  resumption?  Who  does  not  see  growing 
out  of  such  a  policy  a  most  sudden  and  violent  shock  to  busi 
ness,  and  measureless  financial  disaster?  Yet  that  very  policy 
has  been  most  fiercely  advocated  by  Mr.  Greeley  for  the  last 
four  years.  He  has  exhibited  extremes  of  opinion  on  many 
other  national  topics,  which  would  be  most  unfortunate  if  exhib 
ited  in  the  chief  Executive  of  the  nation. 

The  higher  the  office,  the  greater  the  opportunity  to  impress 
the  personal  peculiarities  of  the  incumbent  upon  the  adminis 
tration.  Who  would  be  willing  to  run  the  risk  of  having  Mr. 
Greeley's  various  and  conflicting  opinions  forced  into  the  cur 
rent  of  public  affairs,  with  the  passionate  and  extreme  vehe 
mence  so  characteristic  of  the  man?  It  is  not  safe  to  try  fan 
tastic  experiments  with  so  delicate  and  complicated  a  machine 
as  the  government  of  the  United  States.  Considering  his  past,  it 
is  the  latest  of  modern  wonders  that  he  could  consent  to  be  the 
candidate  of  the  Democratic  party,  —  a  wonder  only  equalled 
by  the  fact  that  they  have  accepted  him. 

What  has  occurred  during  the  last  ten  months  to  change  the 
opinion  Mr.  Greeley  so  pointedly  expressed  in  this  place  in  his 
speech  of  September  25,  1871?  He  then  said:  "I  saw  the  other 
day  a  suggestion  that  I  would  probably  be  the  best  Democratic 
candidate  to  run  against  General  Grant  for  President.  I  thought 
that  the  most  absurd  thing  I  ever  heard  of.  If  the  Democratic 
party  were  called  upon  to  decide  between  Grant  and  myself, 
I  know  that  their  regard  for  what  they  must  call  principle 
would  induce  them  to  vote  against  me.  Why,  I  am  a  decided 
enemy  of  that  party,  *  even  in  its  most  respectable  aspects ' !  " 
Where  is  that  hostility  now?  Has  he  surrendered  for  the  sake 
of  office,  or  have  the  Democracy  become  converts  to  his  opin 
ions?  You  will  remember  that  during  his  visit  to  this  valley 
he  strongly  advocated  the  doctrine  of  protection ;  you  know  to 
what  an  extreme  he  has  always  pushed  that  doctrine ;  you  will 
remember,  for  example,  that  he  has  frequently  said  that,  if  he 
could  have  his  way,  he  would  put  a  tariff  on  pig  iron  of  one 
hundred  dollars  a  ton.  Where  now  are  all  these  eloquent  pleas 
for  the  principle  of  protection?  He  himself  was  a  signer  of  the 
Missouri  call  for  the  Cincinnati  Convention,  a  call  issued  chiefly 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL    CAMPAIGN  OF  1872.         43 

for  the  purpose  of  advocating  the  doctrine  of  free  trade  in  its 
fullest  and  broadest  sense.  Has  he  surrendered  that  opinion  to 
the  Democracy,  or  have  they  surrendered  to  him?  or  have  the 
Revenue  Reformers  been  swallowed  up  by  their  bitterest  ene 
mies?  They  tell  us  the  subject  is  relegated  to  the  Congressional 
districts.  So  is  every  other  topic,  with  equal  propriety.  But 
how  will  Mr.  Greeley,  if  elected,  treat  it  in  his  messages  to  Con 
gress,  where  he  is  bound  to  recommend  such  measures  as  he 
believes  the  good  of  the  country  requires? 

Democrats  of  the  late  Rebel  States  tell  us  they  are  for  Gree 
ley  in  spite  of  his  doctrines  of  abolition  and  his  financial  theo 
ries,  because  he  is  in  favor  of  universal  amnesty,  and  is  their 
friend.  For  myself,  I  honor  Mr.  Greeley  for  his  advocacy  of 
universal  amnesty,  which  I  have  several  times  voted  for  in  the 
House  of  Representatives.  But  what  would  he  do  for  the  South 
were  he  the  President?  It  is  said  that  some  of  the  Southern 
State  governments  have  been  badly  and  corruptly  managed; 
and  so  they  have.  But  how  can  the  President  interfere  to  rem 
edy  that  evil?  Congress,  not  the  President,  can  remove  politi 
cal  disabilities ;  and  there  are  not  now  five  hundred  men  in  the 
nation  who  rest  under  the  disabilities  of  the  Fourteenth  Amend 
ment.  What  change  for  the  better  do  the  people  of  the  South 
expect  from  Mr.  Greeley?  Is  it  the  Ku-Klux  law  of  which  they 
complain?  There  has  been  no  more  vehement  defender  of  that 
law  in  all  the  land  than  Mr.  Greeley.  I  remember  that  when  I, 
in  company  with  twenty-five  other  Republicans,  successfully 
opposed  the  more  extreme  features  of  that  bill  as  it  was  first 
introduced  into  the  House,  we  were  denounced  by  the  editor 
of  the  Tribune,  who  declared  that  we  had  shorn  the  bill  of  its 
most  valuable  provisions.  Do  they  expect  him  to  aid  in  repeal 
ing  the  election  law,  which  they  call  the  bayonet  law?  Let 
them  not  forget  that  the  editor  of  the  Tribune  complained  that 
the  law  was  confined  to  Federal  elections,  and  expressed  the 
wish  that  it  had  been  extended  to  State  and  local  elections  as 
well.  Do  they  wish  him  to  become  the  champion  of  State 
rights,  and  to  resist  the  supposed  centralizing  tendencies  of  the 
Republican  party?  Do  they  not  know  that  he  has  been  more 
nearly  consistent  in  his  advocacy  and  defence  of  that  tendency, 
than  in  any  other  doctrine  he  has  ever  professed  ? 

From  this  strange  and  unnatural  combination  between  Repub 
licans  and  Democrats  it  must  result  that  one  of  the  parties  will 


44          THE  PRESIDENTIAL   CAMPAIGN  OF  1872. 

be  outrageously  cheated,  unless  it  be  true  that  both  have  agreed 
to  abandon  all  principles,  all  convictions,  all  aims  and  objects, 
except  the  simple  one  to  win  office,  —  to  gain  power. 

In  advocating  the  claims  of  the  Republican  party  to  the  con 
fidence  of  the  nation,  I  do  not  by  any  means  assert  that  we 
should  always  stand  by  and  defend  the  party  to  which  we  may 
belong.  It  frequently  becomes  the  duty  of  a  citizen  to  aban 
don  and  help  destroy  a  party  that  has  outlived  its  usefulness, 
or  become  unworthy  of  confidence.  But  will  any  man  who  ap 
proves  of  the  great  achievements  of  the  Republican  party  say 
that  its  work  is  ended,  —  that  in  the  presence  of  its  old  enemy 
it  should  dissolve  and  leave  the  Democracy  master  of  the  field 
and  custodian  of  all  the  precious  results  of  the  conflict?  To 
save  what  has  been  gained,  to  preserve  and  perpetuate  the  fruits 
of  past  effort,  is  only  next  in  importance  to  the  work  of  winning 
the  first  victory. 

It  is  alleged  that  corruptions  have  crept  into  the  Republican 
party,  and  this  also  is  true.  But  where  has  any  party  shown  a 
more  determined  purpose  to  discover  and  Correct  its  own  faults, 
and  what  party  has  more  relentlessly  pursued  and  punished  its 
unfaithful  servants?  At  the  last  session  of  Congress,  the  House 
of  Representatives  never  once  failed  to  order  a  searching  in 
vestigation  into  any  department  of  the  government  when  any 
member,  either  Republican  or  Democrat,  demanded  it.  In  one 
instance,  some  Republican  members  of  the  Senate  seemed  to 
oppose  the  formation  of  an  investigating  committee ;  but  the 
mistake  was  promptly  rectified,  and  the  investigation  was  or 
dered.  So  long  as  the  people  demand  of  their  representatives 
the  free  and  fearless  discharge  of  their  duties,  there  need  be  no 
corruption  of  long  continuance. 

The  virulent  attacks  that  are  now  made  on  General  Grant  are 
mainly  of  a  personal  character.  Nothing  in  his  own  life,  or  the 
life  of  his  family,  escapes  the  assaults  of  those  who  have  joined 
in  the  conspiracy  against  the  Republican  party.  His  son  and 
daughter  are  travelling  in  Europe,  and  for  this  their  father  is 
assailed  and  denounced.  The  President  is  fond  of  a  good  horse, 
and  Senator  Sumner  quotes  from  Plato  to  show  that  a  good  ruler 
must  be  a  ruler,  not  of  horses,  but  of  men.  Amid  the  Babel  of 
talk  which  fills  the  world  he  is  a  good  listener.  For  this  he  is 
called  the  "  grim  sphinx  of  the  White  House/'  who  silently 
plots  the  ruin  of  his  country.  One  day  he  is  denounced  for 


THE  PRESIDENTIAL    CAMPAIGN   OF  1872.         45 

being  absent  from  the  capital  and  leaving  public  affairs  to  take 
care  of  themselves,  and  the  next  he  is  scheming  to  grasp  all 
power  and  convert  the  republic  into  a  consolidated  despotism. 
He  has  accepted  presents,  and  just  now  there  is  a  special  out 
burst  of  virtuous  indignation  in  consequence.  Doubtless  he 
would  have  saved  himself  from  embarrassment  if  he  had  not 
done  so.  Doubtless  the  practice  of  John  Quincy  Adams  and 
General  Thomas  was  the  wiser  one.  But  the  critics  of  General 
Grant  know  that  he  has  accepted  no  presents  since  he  became 
President,  and  that,  as  a  successful  general  accepting  from  a 
people  whom  he  had  so  signally  served  testimonials  of  their 
gratitude,  he  did  no  more  than  was  done  by  McClellan,  and 
Sherman,  and  Farragut,  and  Meade,  —  no  more  than  has  been 
done  by  the  great  modern  and  ancient  captains  of  other  nations. 
They  charge  that  he  has  converted  the  Executive  mansion  into 
a  military  camp.  It  is  not  a  thing  unusual  for  a  President  to 
detail  officers  of  the  army  to  perform  confidential  duties  in  his 
office.  It  has  been  rather  the  rule  than  the  exception.  I  was 
last  week  reading  Lewis  and  Clarke's  record  of  their  explora 
tions,  from  1804  to  1807,  from  the  mouth  of  the  Missouri  River 
to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  on  the  first  page  of  that  report  it  is 
stated  that  "  Captain  Lewis,  of  the  United  States  army,  and 
private  secretary  of  the  President,"  was  placed  in  charge  of  that 
expedition.  The  secretaries  of  whom  complaint  is  made  were 
members  of  General  Grant's  staff  in  the  field  for  many  years,  and 
they  are  now  serving  their  old  chief  at  the  Executive  mansion, 
without  compensation  other  than  their  pay  as  army  officers. 

The  great  majority  of  criticisms  made  on  the  President  are  of 
this  character.  The  people  will  consider  them  at  their  true 
value,  and  will  balance  them  against  the  great  facts  that  relate 
to  the  general  course  of  public  affairs  and  the  welfare  and  pros 
perity  of  the  country. 

In  view  of  all  these  considerations,  past  and  present,  I  believe 
the  thoughtful  men  of  the  country  will  stand  by  the  Republican 
party  and  the  President,  who  have  achieved  so  much  for  the  na 
tion,  and  under  whose  administration  of  public  affairs  the  coun 
try  has  enjoyed,  and  is  still  enjoying,  a  high  degree  of  prosperity. 
Again,  gentlemen  of  the  convention,  thanking  you  for  the  com 
pliment  of  this  nomination,  I  accept  the  trust  with  the  purpose  of 
exercising  on  all  public  questions  that  same  independent  judg 
ment  which  you  have  long  allowed  to  your  representatives. 


THE    FUTURE    OF    THE    REPUBLIC: 

ITS   DANGERS  AND   ITS   HOPES. 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  LITERARY  SOCIETIES  OF 
WESTERN  RESERVE  COLLEGE,  HUDSON,  OHIO, 

JULY  2,  1873. 

MR.  CHAIRMAN  AND  GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  LITERARY  SO 
CIETIES,  —  On  many  accounts  I  should  have  preferred 
to  address  you  on  some  theme  directly  connected  with  college 
work.  It  would  have  been  pleasant  to  turn  away  from  the  busy, 
noisy  world,  and  spend  an  hour  with  you  in  the  peaceful  shades 
of  academic  life.  But  you  are  soon  to  appear  upon  a  stage 
where  powerful  forces,  old  and  new,  are  acting  with  unwonted 
vigor,  and  producing  results  worthy  of  your  profoundest  study. 
A  thousand  fields  await  and  invite  you ;  but  be  your  choice 
what  it  may,  you  will  be  responsible  citizens  of  your  country, 
and  the  glory  of  its  successes  and  the  disgrace  of  its  failures 
will  in  large  measure  rest  upon  you.  When  the  last  of  the 
three  classes  now  in  college  shall  graduate,  the  republic  will 
have  completed  its  first  century;  and  so  quick  and  active  are 
the  elements  which  now  determine  the  fate  of  nations,  that  it 
may  depend  upon  you  and  your  generation  alone  whether  our 
institutions  shall  survive  a  second  century. 

Few  men  can  now  lead  isolated  lives.  In  a  country  like  ours 
the  relations  of  the  state  to  the  citizen  are  vitally  intimate  and 
reciprocal.  The  permanence  and  prosperity  of  the  state  make 
the  success  and  prosperity  of  the  citizen  possible,  while  the 
worthy  and  honorable  success  of  the  citizen  strengthens  and 
adorns  the  state.  Whatever  career,  therefore,  you  may  follow, 
you  cannot  be  indifferent  to  the  fortunes  of  your  country.  I 
propose,  then,  as  the  theme  for  this  hour,  The  Future  of  the 
Republic.  May  we  rationally  hope  that  its  life  and  success 


THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC.  47 

•will  be  permanent?  or  has  it  entered  upon  a  career  of  brilliant, 
but  brief  mortality?  When  our  fathers  shaped  and  fashioned  it, 
and  breathed  into  its  beautiful  form  the  inspiration  of  their  great 
lives,  did  they  utter  a  vain  and  empty  boast  when  they  pro 
nounced  upon  it  the  loving  benediction,  Esto  perpetua  ? 

What  do  men  mean  when  they  predict  immortality  of  any 
thing  earthly? 

The  first  Napoleon  was  one  day  walking  through  the  galleries 
of  the  Louvre,  filled  with  the  wonders  of  art  which  he  had  stolen 
from  the  conquered  capitals  of  Europe.  As  he  passed  the  mar 
vellous  picture -of  Peter  Martyr,  one  of  the  seven  masterpieces 
of  the  world,  he  overheard  an  enthusiastic  artist  exclaim,  "  Im 
mortal  work !  "  Turning  quickly  upon  his  heel,  the  Emperor 
asked,  "  What  is  the  average  life  of  an  oil  painting?"  "  Five 
hundred  years,"  answered  the  artist.  "  Immortal !  "  the  Corsi- 
can  scornfully  repeated  as  he  passed  on,  thinking,  doubtless,  of 
Austerlitz  and  Marengo.  Six  years  ago  the  wonderful  picture 
of  Peter  Martyr  was  dissolved  in  the  flames  of  a  burning  church 
at  Venice,  and,  like  Austerlitz,  is  now  only  a  memory  and  a 
dream. 

When  the  great  lyric  poet  of  Rome  ventured  to  predict  im 
mortality  for  his  works,  he  could  think  of  no  higher  human 
symbol  of  immortality  than  the  Eternal  City  and  her  institu 
tions,  crowded  with  seven  centuries  of  glorious  growth ;  and  so 
Horace  declared  that  his  verses  would  be  remembered  as  long 
as  the  high-priest  of  Apollo  and  the  silent  vestal  virgin  should 
climb  the  steps  of  the  Capitol.  Fifteen  centuries  ago  the  sacred 
fires  of  Vesta  went  out,  never  to  be  rekindled.  For  a  thousand 
years  Apollo  has  had  no  shrine,  no  priest,  no  worshipper,  on  the 
earth.  The  steps,  of  the  Capitol,  and  the  temples  that  crowned 
the  Capitoline  hill,  live  only  in  dreams.  And  to-day  the  anti 
quary  digs  and  disputes  among  the  ruins,  and  is  unable  to  tell 
us  where  the  great  citadel  of  Rome  stood.1 

There  is  much  in  the  history  of  dead  empires  to  sadden  and 
discourage  our  hope  for  the  permanence  of  any  human  institu 
tion.  But  a  deeper  study  reveals  the  fact,  that  nations  have 
perished  only  when  their  institutions  have  ceased  to  be  service 
able  to  the  human  race,  —  when  their  faith  has  become  an  empty 
form,  and  the  destruction  of  the  old  is  indispensable  to  the 
growth  of  the  new.  Growth  is  better  than  permanence,  and 

i  Hare,  Walks  in  Rome,  Chap.  III. 


48  THE  FUTURE    OF  THE   REPUBLIC. 

permanent  growth  is  better  than  all.     Our  faith  is  large  in  time ; 
and  we 

"  Doubt  not  through  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs, 
And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widened  with  the  process  of  the  suns." 

It  matters  little  what  may  be  the  forms  of  national  institu 
tions,  if  the  life,  freedom,  and  growth  of  society  are  secured. 
To  save  the  life  of  a  nation  it  is  sometimes  necessary  to  discard 
the  old  form  and  make  room  for  the  new  growth ;  for 

"  Old  decays  but  foster  new  creations  ; 
Bones  and  ashes  feed  the  golden  corn  ; 
Fresh  elixirs  wander  every  moment 
Down  the  veins  through  which  the  live  part  feeds  its  child,  the  live  unborn." 

There  are  two  classes  of  forces  whose  action  and  reaction 
determine  the  condition  of  a  nation,  the  forces  of  repressipn 
and  expression.  The  one  acts  from  without,  —  limits,  curbs,  re 
strains  ;  the  other  acts  from  within, —  expands,  enlarges,  propels. 
Constitutional  forms,  statutory  limitations,  conservative  cus 
toms,  belong  to  the  first ;  the  free  play  of  individual  life,  opinion, 
and  action,  belong  to  the  second.  If  these  forces  be  happily 
balanced,  if  there  be  a  wise  conservation  and  correlation  of  both, 
a  nation  may  enjoy  the  double  blessing  of  progress  and  perma 
nence.  How  are  these  forces  acting  upon  our  nation  at  the 
present  time?  Our  success  has  been  so  great  hitherto,  we  have 
passed  safely  through  so  many  perils  which  at  the  time  seemed 
almost  fatal,  that  we  may  assume  that  the  republic  will  continue 
to  live  and  prosper  unless  it  shall  be  assailed  by  dangers  which 
outnumber  and  outweigh  the  elements  of  its  strength.  It  is  idle 
to  boast  of  what  we  are,  and  what  we  are  to  be,  unless  at  the 
same  time  we  compare  our  strength  with  the  magnitude  of  our 
dangers.  What,  then,  are  our  dangers,  and  how  can  they  be 
conquered? 

In  the  first  place,  our  great  dangers  are  not  from  without. 
Separated  from  all  great  rivals  by  broad  seas,  and  protected  from 
foreign  complications  by  the  wise  policy  introduced  by  Wash 
ington  and  now  become  traditional,  —  the  policy  of  non-inter 
ference,  —  nothing  but  reckless  and  gratuitous  folly  on  our  part 
can  lead  us  into  serious  peril  from  abroad.  Our  republic  is  the 
undisputed  master  of  its  geographical  position.  It  is  the  central 
figure  in  wrhat  must  soon  be  the  grandest  of  all  theatres  of  na 
tional  effort.  Civilization  has  always  clustered  about  some  sea 
as  the  centre  and  arena  of  its  activity.  For  many  centuries  the 


THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC.  49 

Mediterranean  was  the  historic  sea,  around  which  were  grouped 
the  great  nations  of  classic  antiquity.  The  grander  forces  of 
modern  history  required  a  larger  theatre  of  operations ;  and  the 
race  turned  remorselessly  away  from  the  scenes  and  monuments 
of  its  ancient  glory.  It  changed  the  front  of  Europe  to  the 
westward,  and  made  the  Atlantic  and  its  shores  the  scene  and 
centre  of  the  new  and  grander  activities.  The  Atlantic  is  still 
the  great  historic  sea.  Even  in  its  sunken  wrecks  might  be  read 
the  records  of  modern  nations.  On  its  western  shore,  our  re 
public  holds  the  chief  place  of  power.  But  there  is  still  a  grander 
sea ;  and  who  shall  say  that  the  Pacific  will  not  yet  become  the 
great  historic  sea  of  the  future,  —  the  vast  amphitheatre  around 
which  shall  sit  in  majesty  and  power  the  two  Americas,  Asia, 
Africa,  and  the  chief  colonies  of  Europe?  In  that  august  as 
semblage  of  nations,  the  United  States  will  be  "  easily  chief,"  if 
she  fill  worthily  the  measure  of  her  high  destiny,  —  if  she  do 
not  abdicate  the  seat  which  Providence  and  Nature  have  as 
signed  her. 

I  repeat  it,  then,  our  great  dangers  are  not  from  without. 
We  do  not  live  by  the  consent  of  any  other  nation.  We  must  v 
look  within  to  find  the  elements  of  danger.  The  first  and  most 
obvious  of  these  is  territorial  expansion,  overgrowth ;  the  danger 
that  we  shall  break  in  pieces  by  our  own  weight.  Expansion 
as  a  source  of  weakness  has  been  the  commonplace  of  histo 
rians  and  publicists  for  many  centuries ;  and  its  truth  has  found 
many  striking  illustrations  in  the  experience  of  mankind.  But 
we  have  fair  ground  for  believing  that  new  conditions  and  new 
forces  have  nearly,  if  not  wholly,  removed  the  ground  of  this 
danger.  Distance,  estrangement,  isolation,  have  been  overcome 
by  the  recent  amazing  growth  in  the  means  of  intercommuni 
cation.  For  political  and  industrial  purposes,  California  and 
Massachusetts  are  nearer  neighbors  to-day  than  were  Philadel 
phia  and  Boston  in  the  days  of  the  Revolution.  The  people  of 
all  our  thirty-seven  States  know  more  of  each  other's  affairs 
than  the  Vermonter  knew  of  the  Virginian  fifty  years  ago.  It 
was  distance,  isolation,  ignorance  of  separate  parts,  that  broke 
the  cohesive  force  of  the  great  empires  of  antiquity.  Public 
affairs  are  now  more  public,  and  private  less  private,  than  in 
former  ages.  The  railroad,  the  telegraph,  and  the  press  have 
virtually  brought  our  citizens,  with  their  opinions  and  industries, 
face  to  face ;  and  they  live  almost  in  each  other's  sight.  The 

VOL.    II.  4 


I 


50  THE  FUTURE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

leading  political,  social,  and  industrial  events  of  this  day  will  be 
reported  and  discussed  at  more  than  two  millions  of  American 
breakfast-tables  to-morrow  morning.  Public  opinion  is  kept  in 
constant  exercise  and  training.  It  keeps  itself  constantly  in 
•hand,  —  ready  to  approve,  condemn,  and  command.  It  may 

/be  wrong;  it  may  be  tyrannical;  but  it  is  all-pervading,  and 
constitutes  more  than  ever  before  a  strong  bond  of  nationality. 

{  Fortunately,  our  greatest  line  of  extension  is  from  east  to 
west,  and  our  pathway  along  the  parallels  of  latitude  is  not  too 
broad  for  safety,  for  it  lies  within  the  zone  of  national  develop 
ments.  The  Gulf  of  Mexico  is  our  special  providence  on  the 
south.  Perhaps  it  would  be  more  fortunate  for  us  if  the  north 
ern  shore  of  that  gulf  stretched  westward  to  the  Pacific.  If  our 
territory  embraced  the  tropics,  the  sun  would  be  our  enemy; 
the  stars  in  their  courses  would  fight  against  us.  Now  these 
celestial  forces  are  our  friends,  and  help  to  make  us  one.  Let 
us  hope  that  the  republic  will  be  content  to  maintain  this 
friendly  alliance. 

Our  northern  boundary  is  not  yet  wholly  surveyed.  Perhaps 
our  neighbors  across  the  lakes  will  some  day  take  a  hint  from 
nature,  and  save  themselves  and  us  the  discomfort  of  an  artifi 
cial  boundary.  Restrained  within  our  present  southern  limits, 
with  a  population  more  homogeneous  than  that  of  any  other 
great  nation,  and  with  a  wonderful  power  to  absorb  and  assim 
ilate  to  our  own  type  the  European  races  that  come  among  us, 
we  have  but  little  reason  to  fear  that  we  shall  be  broken  up  by 
divided  interests  and  internal  feuds  because  of  our  great  terri 
torial  extent. 

After  all,  territory  is  but  the  body  of  a  nation.  The  people 
who  inhabit  its  hills  and  its  valleys  are  its  soul,  its  spirit,  its  life. 
In  them  dwells  its  hope  of  immortality.  Among  them,  if  any 
where,  are  to  be  found  its  chief  elements  of  destruction.  And 
this  leads  me  to  consider  an  alleged  danger  to  our  institutions 
which,  if  well  founded,  would  be  radical  and  fatal.  I  refer 
to  the  allegation  that  universal  suffrage,  as  the  supreme  source 
of  political  authority,  is  a  fatal  mistake.  When  I  hear  this 
proposition  urged,  I  feel,  as  most  Americans  doubtless  do,  that 
it  is  a  kind  of  moral  treason  to  listen  to  it,  and  that  to  enter 
tain  it  would  be  political  atheism.  That  the  consent  of  the 
governed  is  the  only  true  source  of  national  authority,  and  is 
the  safest  and  firmest  foundation  on  which  to  build  a  govern- 


THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC.  51 

ment,  is  the  most  fundamental  axiom  of  our  political  faith.  But 
we  must  not  forget  that  a  majority — perhaps  a  large  majority 
—  of  the  thinkers,  writers,  and  statesmen  of  Christendom  de 
clare  that  our  axiom  is  no  axiom,  —  indeed,  is  not  true,  but  is  a 
delusion,  a  snare,  and  a  fatal  heresy. 

At  the  risk  of  offending  our  American  pride,  I  shall  quote 
what  is  probably  the  most  formidable  indictment  of  the  dem 
ocratic  principle  ever  penned.  It  was  written  by  the  late  Lord 
Macaulay,  a  profound  student  of  society  and  government,  and 
a  man  who,  on  most  subjects,  entertained  broad  and  liberal 
views.  Millions  of  Americans  have  read  and  admired  his  His 
tory  and  Essays ;  but  only  a  few  thousands  have  read  his  brief 
but  remarkable  letter  of  1857,  in  which  he  discusses  the  future 
of  our  government.  We  are  so  confident  of  our  position  that 
we  seldom  care  to  debate  it.  The  letter  was  addressed  to  the 
Hon.  H.  S.  Randall,  of  New  York,  in  acknowledgment  of  a 
copy  of  that  gentleman's  Life  of  Jefferson.  I  quote  it  almost 
entire. 

"  HOLLY  LODGE,  KENSINGTON,  LONDON, 
May  23,  1857. 

"  DEAR  SIR,  ....  You  are  surprised  to  learn  that  I  have  not  a  high 
opinion  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  I  am  surprised  at  your  surprise.  I  am 
certain  that  I  never  wrote  a  line,  and  that  I  never,  in  Parliament,  in  conver 
sation,  or  even  on  the  hustings,  —  a  place  where  it  is  the  fashion  to  court 
the  populace,  —  uttered  a  word  indicating  an  opinion  that  the  supreme 
authority  in  a  state  ought  to  be  intrusted  to  the  majority  of  citizens  told 
by  the  head ;  in  other  words,  to  the  poorest  and  most  ignorant  part  of 
society.  I  have  long  been  convinced  that  institutions  purely  democratic 
must,  sooner  or  later,  destroy  liberty  or  civilization,  or  both.  In  Europe, 
where  the  population  is  dense,  the  effect  of  such  institutions  would  be 
almost  instantaneous.  What  happened  lately  in  France  is  an  example. 
In  1848,  a  pure  democracy  was  established  there.  During  a  short  time 
there  was  reason  to  expect  a  general  spoliation,  a  national  bankruptcy,  a 
new  partition  of  the  soil,  a  maximum  of  prices,  a  ruinous  load  of  taxa 
tion  laid  on  the  rich  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  the  poor  in  idleness. 
Such  a  system  would,  in  twenty  years,  have  made  France  as  poor  and 
barbarous  as  the  France  of  the  Carlovingians.  Happily,  the  danger  was 
averted;  and  now  there  is  a  despotism,  a  silent  tribune,  an  enslaved 
press.  Liberty  is  gone,  but  civilization  has  been  saved.  I  have  not  the 
smallest  doubt  that,  if  we  had  a  purely  democratic  government  here,  the 
effect  would  be  the  same.  Either  the  poor  would  plunder  the  rich,  and 
civilization  would  perish,  or  order  and  prosperity  would  be  saved  by  a 


52  THE  FUTURE    OF  THE   REPUBLIC. 

strong  military  government,  and  liberty  would  perish.     You  may  think 
that  your  country  enjoys  an  exemption  from  these  evils.     I  will  frankly 
own  to  you  that  I  am  of  a  very  different  opinion.     Your  fate  I  believe  to 
be  certain,  though  it  is  deferred  by  a  physical  cause.     As  long  as  you 
have  a  boundless  extent  of  fertile  and  unoccupied  land,  your  laboring 
population  will  be  far  more  at  ease  than  the  laboring  population  of  the 
Old  World ;  and  while  that  is  the  case,  the  Jefferson  politics  may  con 
tinue   to  exist  without  causing   any  fatal  calamity.     But  the  time  will 
come  when  New  England  will  be  as  thickly  peopled  as  Old  England. 
Wages  will  be  as  low,  and  will  fluctuate  as  much  with  you  as  with  us. 
You  will  have  your  Manchesters  and  Birminghams.     And  in  those  Man- 
chesters  and  Birminghams  hundreds  of  thousands  of  artisans  will  assur 
edly  be  sometimes  out  of  work.     Then  your  institutions  will  be  fairly 
brought  to  the  test.     Distress  everywhere  makes  the  laborer  mutinous 
and  discontented,  and  inclines  him  to  listen  with  eagerness  to  agitators, 
who  tell  him  that  it  is  a  monstrous  iniquity  that  one  man  should  have  a 
million  while  another  cannot  get  a  full  meal.     In  bad  years  there  is 
plenty  of  grumbling  here,  and  sometimes  a  little  rioting.     But  it  matters 
little,  for  here  the  sufferers  are  not  the  rulers.     The  supreme  power  is  in 
the  hands  of  a  class,  numerous  indeed,  but  select,  —  of  an  educated  class, 
—  of  a  class  which  is,  and  knows  itself  to  be,  deeply  interested  in  the 
security  of  property,  and  the  maintenance  of  order.     Accordingly,  the 
malcontents  are  firmly,  yet  gently,  restrained.     The  bad  time  is  got  over 
without  robbing  the  wealthy  to  relieve   the  indigent.     The  springs  of 
national  prosperity  soon  begin  to  flow  again :  work  is  plentiful,  wages 
rise,  and  all  is  tranquillity  and  cheerfulness.     I  have  seen  England  pass 
three  or  four  times  through  such  critical  seasons  as  I  have  described. 
Through  such  seasons  the  United  States  will  have  to  pass  in  the  course 
of  the  next  century,  if  not  of  this.     How  will  you  pass  through  them? 
I  heartily  wish  you  a  good  deliverance.     But  my  reason  and  my  wishes 
are  at  war,  and  I  cannot  help  foreboding  the  worst.     It  is  quite  plain 
that  your  government  will  never  be  able  to  restrain  a  distressed  and  dis 
contented  majority.     For  with  you  the  majority  is  the  government,  and 
has  the  rich,  who  are  always  a  minority,  absolutely  at  its  mercy.    The  day 
will  come  when,  in  the  State  of  New  York,  a  multitude  of  people,  none  of 
whom  has  had  more  than  half  a  breakfast,  or  expects  to  have  more  than 
half  a  dinner,  will  choose  a  legislature.     Is  it  possible  to  doubt  what  sort 
of  a  legislature  will  be  chosen  ?    On  one  side  is  a  statesman  preaching  pa 
tience,  respect  for  vested  rights,  strict  observance  of  public  faith ;  on  the 
other  is  a  demagogue  ranting  about  the  tyranny  of  capitalists  and  usurers, 
and  asking  why  anybody  should  be  permitted  to  drink  champagne,  and 
to  ride  in  a  carriage,  while  thousands  of  honest  folks  are  in  want  of  ne 
cessaries.     Which  of  the  two  candidates  is  likely  to  be  preferred  by  a 
workingman  who  hears  his  children  cry  for  more  bread?     I  seriously 

V 


THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 


53 


apprehend  that  you  will,  in  some  such  season  of  adversity  as  I  have  de 
scribed,  do  things  which  will  prevent  prosperity  from  returning ;  that  you 
will  act  like  people  who  should,  in  a  year  of  scarcity,  devour  all  the  seed 
corn,  and  thus  make  the  next  a  year,  not  of  scarcity,  but  of  absolute  fam 
ine.  There  will  be,  I  fear,  spoliation.  The  spoliation  will  increase  the 
distress.  The  distress  will  produce  fresh  spoliation.  There  is  nothing 
to  stop  you.  Your  Constitution  is  all  sail  and  no  anchor.  As  I  said 
before,  when  a  society  has  entered  on  this  downward  progress,  either 
civilization  or  liberty  must  perish.  Either  some  Caesar  or  Napoleon  will 
seize  the  reins  of  government  with  a  strong  hand,  or  your  republic  will 
be  as  fearfully  plundered  and  laid  waste  by  barbarians  in  the  twentieth 
century,  as  the  Roman  empire  was  in  the  fifth,  —  with  this  difference, 
that  the  Huns  and  Vandals  who  ravaged  the  Roman  empire  came  from 
without,  and  that  your  Huns  and  Vandals  will  have  been  engendered 
within  your  country  by  your  own  institutions. 

"  Thinking  thus,  of  course  I  cannot  reckon  Jefferson  among  the  ben 
efactors  of  mankind."  * 

Certainly  this  letter  contains  food  for  serious  thought ;  and  it 
would  be  idle  to  deny  that  the  writer  has  pointed  out  what  may 
become  serious  dangers  in  our  future.  But  the  evils  he  com 
plains  of  are  by  no  means  confined  to  democratic  governments, 
nor  do  they,  in  the  main,  grow  out  of  popular  suffrage.  If  they 
do,  England  herself  has  taken  a  dangerous  step  since  Macaulay 
wrote.  Ten  years  after  the  date  of  this  letter  she  extended  the 
suffrage  to  eight  hundred  thousand  of  her  workingmen,  a  class 
hitherto  ignored  in  politics.  And  still  later  we  have  extended 
it  to  an  ignorant  and  lately  enslaved  population  of  more  than  four 
millions.  Whether  for  weal  or  for  woe,  enlarged  suffrage  is  the 
tendency  of  all  modern  nations.  Ij/enture  the  de^ja£atioruJ;bat^. 
this  opinion  of  Macaulay's  is  vulnerable  on  several  grounds. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  based  upon  a  belief  from  which  few  if 
any  British  writers  have  been  able  to  emancipate  themselves ; 
namely,  the  belief  that  mankind  are  born  into  permanent  classes, 
and  that  in  the  main  they  must  live,  work,  and  die  in  the  fixed 
class  or  condition  in  which  they  are  born.  It  is  hardly  possible 
for  a  man  reared  in  an  aristocracy  like  that  of  England  to  elim 
inate  this  conviction  from  his  mind,  for  the  British  empire  is 
built  upon  it.  Their  theory  of  national  stability  is,  that  there 
must  be  a  permanent  class  who  shall  hold  in  their  own  hands 
so  much  of  the  wealth,  the  privilege,  and  the  political  power  of 

1  The  copy  here  followed  is  that  found  in  the  Appendix  to  Harpers'  edition  of 
"  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Lord  Macaulay,"  by  G.  O.  Trevelyan. 


54  THE  FUTURE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

the  kingdom,  that  they  can  compel  the  admiration  and  obe 
dience  of  all  other  classes.  At  several  periods  of  English  his 
tory  there  have  been  serious  encroachments  upon  this  doctrine. 
But,  on  the  whole,  British  phlegm  has  held  to  it  sturdily,  and 
still  maintains  it.  The  great  voiceless  class  of  day-laborers  have 
made  but  little  headway  against  the  doctrine.  The  editor  of 
a  leading  British  magazine  told  me,  a  few  years  ago,  that  in 
twenty-five  years  of  observation  he  had  never  known  a  mere 
farm-laborer  in  England  to  rise  above  his  class.  Some,  he  said, 
had  done  so  in  manufactures,  some  in  trade,  but  in  mere  farm 
labor  not  one.  The  government  of  a  country  where  such  a 
fact  is  possible  has  much  to  answer  for. 

We  deny  the  justice  or  the  necessity  of  keeping  ninety-nine 
of  the  population  in  perpetual  poverty  and  obscurity,  in  order 
that  the  hundredth  may  be  rich  and  powerful  enough  to  hold 
the  ninety-nine  in  subjection.  Where  such  permanent  classes 
exist,  the  conflict  of  which  Macaulay  speaks  is  inevitable.  And 
why?  Not  that  men  are  inclined  to  fight  the  class  above  them, 
but  that  they  fight  against  any  artificial  barrier  which  makes  it 
impossible  for  them  to  enter  that  higher  class  and  become  a 
part  of  it.  We  point  to  the  fact,  that  in  this  country  there  are 
no  classes  in  the  British  sense  of  that  word, —  no  impassable 
barriers  of  caste.  Now  that  slavery  is  abolished,  we  can  truly 
say  that  through  our  political  society  there  run  no  fixed  hori 
zontal  strata  above  which  none  can  pass.  Our  society  resem 
bles  rather  the  waves  of  the  ocean,  whose  every  drop  may 
move  freely  among  its  fellows,  and  may  rise  toward  the  light 
until  it  flashes  on  the  crest  of  the  highest  wave. 

Again,  in  depicting  the  dangers  of  universal  suffrage,  Macaulay 
leaves  wholly  out  of  the  account  the  great  counterbalancing  force 
of  universal  education.  He  contemplates  a  government  deliv 
ered  over  to  a  vast  multitude  of  ignorant,  vicious  men,  who  have 
learned  no  self-control,  who  have  never  comprehended  the 
national  life,  and  who  wield  the  ballot  solely  for  personal  and 
selfish  ends.  If  this  were  indeed  the  necessary  condition  of 
democratic  communities,  it  would  be  difficult,  perhaps  impos 
sible,  to  escape  the  logic  of  Macaulay's  letter.  And  here  is  a 
real  peril,  —  the  danger  that  we  shall  rely  upon  the  mere  extent 
of  the  suffrage  as  a  national  safeguard.  We  cannot  safely,  even 
for  a  moment,  lose  sight  of  the  quality  of  the  suffrage,  which  is 
more  important  than  its  quantity. 


THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC.  55 

We  are  apt  to  be  deluded  into  false  security  by  political 
catchwords,  devised  to  flatter  rather  than  instruct.  We  have 
happily  escaped  the  dogma  of  the  divine  right  of  kings.  Let 
us  not  fall  into  the  equally  pernicious  error  that  multitude  is 
divine  because  it  is  a  multitude.  The  words  of  our  great  pub 
licist,  the  late  Dr.  Lieber,  whose  faith  in  republican  liberty  was 
undoubted,  should  never  be  forgotten.  In  discussing  the  doc 
trine  of  Vox  populi,  vox  Dei,  he  said,  "  Woe  to  the  country  in 
which  political  hypocrisy  first  calls  the  people  almighty,  then 
teaches  that  the  voice  of  the  people  is  divine,  then  pretends  to 
take  a  mere  clamor  for  the  true  voice  of  the  people,  and  lastly 
gets  up  the  desired  clamor."  *  This  sentence  ought  to  be  read 
in  every  political  caucus.  It  would  make  an  interesting  and 
significant  preamble  to  most  of  our  political  platforms.  It  is 
only  when  the  people  speak  truth  and  justice  that  their  voice 
can  be  called  "  the  voice  of  God."  Our  faith  in  the  demo 
cratic  principle  rests  upon  the  belief  that  intelligent  men  will 
see  that  their  highest  political  good  is  in  liberty,  regulated  by 
just  and  equal  laws;  and  that,  in  the  distribution  of  political 
power,  it  is  safe  to  follow  the  maxim,  "  Each  for  all,  and  all 
for  each."  We  confront  the  dangers  of  suffrage  by  the  bless 
ings  of  universal  education.  We  believe  that  the  strength  of 
the  state  is  the  aggregate  strength  of  its  individual  citizens; 
and  that  the  suffrage  is  the  link  that  binds,  in  a  bond  of  mutual 
interest  and  responsibility,  the  fortunes  of  the  citizen  to  the  for 
tunes  of  the  state.  Hence,  as  popular  suffrage  is  the  broadest 
base,  so,  when  coupled  with  intelligence  and  virtue,  it  becomes 
the  strongest,  the  most  enduring  base  on  which  to  build  the  su 
perstructure  of  government. 

There  is  another  class  of  dangers,  unlike  any  we  have  yet 
considered,  —  dangers  engendered  by  civilization  itself,  and 
made  formidable  by  the  very  forces  which  man  is  employing  as 
the  most  effective  means  of  bettering  his  condition  and  advan 
cing  civilization.  I  select  the  railway  problem  as  an  example  of 
this  class.  I  can  do  but  little  more  than  to  state  the  question, 
and  call  your  attention  to  its  daily  increasing  magnitude. 
~  We  are  so  involved  in  the  events  and  movements  of  society, 
that  we  do  not  stop  to  realize  —  what  is  undeniably  true  —  that, 
during  the  last  forty  years,  all  modern  societies  have  entered 
upon  a  period  of  change,  more  marked,  more  pervading,  more 

l  Civil  Liberty  and  Self-Government,  (Philadelphia,  1859,)  p.  415. 


56  THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

radical,  than  any  that  has  occurred  during  the  last  three  hun 
dred  years.  In  saying  this,  I  do  not  forget  our  own  political 
and  military  history,  nor  the  French  Revolution  of  1789.  The 
changes  now  taking  place  have  been  wrought  and  are  being 
wrought  mainly,  almost  wholly,  by  a  single  mechanical  contriv 
ance,  the  steam  locomotive.  Imagine,  if  you  can,  what  would 
happen  if  to-morrow  morning  the  railway  locomotive,  and  its 
corollary,  the  telegraph,  were  blotted  from  the  earth.  At  first 
thought,  it  would  seem  impossible  to  get  on  at  all  with  the  fee 
ble  substitutes  that  we  should  be  compelled  to  adopt  in  place  of 
these  great  forces.  To  what  humble  proportions  mankind  would 
be  compelled  to  scale  down  the  great  enterprises  they  are  now 
pushing  forward  with  such  ease  !  But  were  this  calamity  to 
happen,  we  should  simply  be  placed  where  we  were  forty-three 
years  ago. 

There  are  many  persons  in  this  audience  who  well  remember 
the  day  when  Andrew  Jackson,  after  four  weeks  of  toilsome 
travel  from  his  home  in  Tennessee,  reached  Washington,  and 
took  his  first  oath  of  office  as  President  of  the  United  States. 
That  was  in  1829.  The  railway  locomotive  did  not  then  exist. 
During  that  year  Henry  Clay  was  struggling  to  make  his  name 
immortal  by  linking  it  with  the  then  vast  project  of  building 
a  national  road  —  a  turnpike  —  from  the  national  capital  to  the 
banks  of  the  Mississippi.  In  the  autumn  of  that  very  year, 
George  Stephenson  ran  his  first  experimental  locomotive,  the 
"  Rocket,"  from  Manchester  to  Liverpool  and  back.  The  rum 
ble  of  its  wheels,  redoubled  a  million  times,  is  echoing  to-day  on 
every  continent.  In  1870  there  were  about  125,000  miles  of  rail 
road  on  the  two  hemispheres,  constructed  at  a  cost  of  little  less 
than  $100,000  per  mile,  and  representing  nearly  $12,000,000,000 
of  invested  capital.  A  Parliamentary  commission  found  that 
'during  the  year  1866  the  railway  cars  of  Great  Britain  carried  an 
average  of  850,000  passengers  per  day;  and  during  that  year 
the  work  done  by  their  8,125  locomotives  would  have  required 
for  its  performance  three  and  a  half  millions  of  horses  and 
nearly  two  millions  of  men. 

What  have  our  people  done  for  the  locomotive,  and  what  has 
it  done  for  us?  To  the  United  States,  with  its  vast  territorial 
areas,  the  railroad  was  a  vital  necessity.  Talleyrand  once  said 
to  the  first  Napoleon,  that  "  the  United  States  was  a  giant  with 
out  bones."  Since  that  time  our  gristle  has  been  rapidly  hard- 


THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC.  57 

ening.  Sixty-seven  thousand  miles  of  iron  track  is  a  tolerable 
skeleton  even  for  a  giant.  When  this  new  power  appeared,  our 
people  everywhere  felt  the  necessity  of  setting  it  to  work ;  and 
individuals,  cities,  States,  and  the  nation  lavished  their  resources 
without  stint  to  make  a  pathway  for  it.  Fortunes  were  sunk 
under  almost  every  mile  of  our  earlier  roads,  in  the  effort  to 
capture  and  utilize  this  new  power.  If  the  State  did  not  head 
the  subscription  for  a  new  road,  it  usually  came  to  the  rescue 
before  the  work  was  completed.  The  lands  given  by  the  States 
and  by  the  national  government  to  aid  in  the  construction  of 
railroads  reach  an  aggregate  of  nearly  250,000,000  acres,  —  a 
territory  equal  to  nine  times  the  area  of  Ohio.  With  these  vast 
resources  we  have  made  paths  for  the  steam  giant;  and  to-day 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  our  business  and  working  men  \ 
are  in  his  immediate  service.  Such  a  power  naturally  attracts  |1\ 
to  its  enterprises  the  brightest  and  strongest  intellects.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  find,  in  any  other  profession,  so  large  a  propor 
tion  of  men  possessed  of  a  high  order  of  business  ability  as 
those  who  construct,  manage,  and  operate  our  railroads. 

The  American  people  have  done  much  for  the  locomotive, 
and  it  has  done  much  for  them.  We  have  already  seen  that  it 
has  greatly  reduced,  if  not  wholly  destroyed,  the  danger  that  the 
government  will  fall  to  pieces  by  its  own  weight.  The  railroad 
has  not  only  brought  our  people  and  their  industries  together, 
but  it  has  carried  civilization  into  the  wilderness,  has  built  up 
States  and  Territories  which  but  for  its  power  would  have  re 
mained  deserts  for  a  century  to  come.  "  Abroad  and  at  home," 
as  Mr.  Adams  tersely  declares,  "  it  has  equally  nationalized 
people,  and  cosmopolized  nations."  It  has  played  a  most  im 
portant  part  in  the  recent  movement  for  the  unification  and 
preservation  of  nations.  It  enabled  us  to  do  what  the  old  mili 
tary  science  had  pronounced  impossible,  to  conquer  a  revolted 
population  of  eleven  millions,  occupying  a  territory  one  fifth  as 
large  as  the  continent  of  Europe.  In  Mr.  Adams's  able  essay 
on  the  railway  system,  he  has  pointed  out  some  of  the  remark 
able  achievements  of  the  railroad  in  our  recent  history.  For 
example,  a  single  railroad  track  enabled  Sherman  to  maintain 
eighty  thousand  fighting  men  three  hundred  miles  beyond  his 
base  of  supplies.  Another  line,  in  a  space  of  seven  days, 
brought  a  reinforcement  of  two  fully  equipped  army  corps 
around  a  circuit  of  thirteen  hundred  miles,  to  strengthen  an 


58  THE  FUTURE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

army  at  a  threatened  point.  Mr.  Adams  calls  attention  to  the 
still  more  striking  fact,  that,  for  ten  years  past, — with  fifteen 
hundred  millions  of  our  indebtedness  abroad,  an  enormous  debt 
at  home,  unparalleled  public  expenditures,  and  a  depreciated 
paper  currency,  —  in  defiance  of  all  past  experience,  we  have 
been  steadily  conquering  our  difficulties,  have  escaped  the  pre 
dicted  collapse,  and  are  promptly  meeting  our  engagements; 
because,  through  energetic  railroad  development,  the  country 
has  been  producing  real  wealth  as  no  country  has  produced 
it  before.  Finally,  he  sums  up  the  case  by  declaring  that  the 
locomotive  has  "  dragged  the  country  through  its  difficulties  in 
spite  of  itself."  1  It  is  unnecessary  to  particularize  further ;  for 
whether  there  be  peace  or  war,  society  cannot  exist  in  its  pres 
ent  order  without  the  railroad. 

I  have  noticed  briefly  what  American  society  has  done  for  the 
locomotive,  and  what  it  has  done  for  society.  Let  us  now  in 
quire  what  it  is  doing  and  is  likely  to  do  to  society. 

The  national  Constitution  and  the  constitutions  of  most  of 
the  States  were  formed  before  the  locomotive  existed ;  and  of 
course  no  special  provisions  were  made  for  its  control.  Are 
our  institutions  strong  enough  to  stand  the  shock  and  strain 
of  this  new  force?  A  government  made  for  the  kingdom  of 
Liliput  might  fail  to  handle  the  forces  of  Brobdingnag.  It  can 
not  have  escaped  your  attention,  that  all  the  forces  of  society, 
new  and  old,  are  now  acting  with  unusual  vigor  in  all  depart 
ments  of  life.  They  crowd  your  college  course  with  new  studies 
each  year.  They  challenge  you  with  new  problems.  They  as 
sail  you  with  new  and  imperious  demands.  Your  culture  must 
be  more  thorough,  and  the  scope  and  amount  of  your  knowl 
edge  far  greater,  to-day,  than  the  graduate  of  forty  years  ago 
required  to  keep  abreast  of  the  age.  Much  more  knowledge 
and  culture  are  now  required  for  every  profession.  A  recent 
English  writer  of  great  thoughtfulness  and  power  has  said  that 
the  demands  of  our  civilization  are  too  great  for  the  stamina 
and  endurance  of  our  people;  that  "  our  race  is  overweighted, 
and  appears  likely  to  be  drudged  into  degeneracy  by  demands 
that  exceed  its  powers."2  But  interesting  and  important  as  that 
reflection  is,  in  relation  to  individual  life,  the  rapid  development 
of  our  material  interests  raises  another  question  even  more  mo- 

1  Chapters  of  Erie,  etc.,  (Boston,  1871,)  pp.  352,  353. 

2  Francis  Gallon,  Hereditary  Genius,  (New  York,  1871,)  p.  345. 


THE   FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 


59 


mentous.  May  it  not  be  true  that  the  new  forces  are  also  over 
weighting  the  strength  of  our  social  and  political  institutions? 
The  editor  of  the  Nation  declares  the  simple  truth  when  in  a 
recent  issue  he  says :  "  The  locomotive  is  coming  in  contact 
with  the  framework  of  our  institutions.  In  this  country  of  sim 
ple  government,  the  most  powerful  centralizing  force  which 
civilization  has  yet  produced  has,  within  the  next  score  years, 
yet  to  assume  its  relations  to  that  political  machinery  which  is 
to  control  and  regulate  it." 

The  railway  problem  would  have  been  much  easier  of  solu 
tion  if  its  difficulties  had  been  understood  in  the  beginning. 
But  we  have  waited  until  the  child  has  become  a  giant.  We 
attempted  to  mount  a  columbiad  on  a  carriage  whose  strength 
was  only  sufficient  to  stand  the  recoil  of  a  twelve-pound  shot. 
The  danger  to  be  apprehended  does  not  arise  from  the  railroad 
merely,  but  from  its  combination  with  the  piece  of  legal  ma 
chinery  known  as  the  private  corporation. 

In  discussing  this  theme  we  must  not  make  an  indiscriminate 
attack  upon  corporations.  The  corporation,  limited  to  its  proper 
uses,  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  of  the  many  useful  creations  of 
law.  One  class  of  corporations  has  played  a  most  important 
and  conspicuous  part  in  securing  the  liberties  of  mankind.  It 
was  the  municipal  corporations  —  the  free  cities  and  chartered 
towns  —  that  preserved  and  developed  the  spirit  of  freedom 
during  the  darkness  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  powerfully 
aided  in  the  overthrow  of  the  feudal  system.  The  charters  of 
London  and  of  the  lesser  cities  and  towns  of  England  made  the 
most  effective  resistance  to  the  tyranny  of  Charles  II.  and  the 
judicial  savagery  of  Jeffreys.  The  spirit  of  the  free  town  and 
the  chartered  colony  taught  our  own  fathers  how  to  win  their 
independence.  The  New  England  township  was  the  political 
unit  which  formed  the  basis  of  most  of  our  States.  This  class 
of  corporations  has  been  most  useful,  and  almost  always  safe, 
because  they  have  been  kept  constantly  within  the  control  of 
the  community  for  whose  benefit  they  were  created.1  The  States 
have  never  surrendered  the  power  of  amending  their  charters. 
The  early  English  law  writers  classified  all  corporations  as  pub 
lic  or  private  ;  calling  those  of  a  municipal  character  public  or 
quasi  public,  and  all  others  private  corporations.  The  latter 

1  The  recent  phases  of  municipal  government  in  our  large  cities  should,  per 
haps,  lead  me  to  modify  this  statement. 


60  THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

class,  at  that  time,  and  indeed  long  afterward,  consisted  chiefly 
of  such  organizations  as  hospitals,  colleges,  and  other  charities 
supported  by  private  benefactions.  The  ownership  of  the  prop 
erty,  not  the  object  of  the  corporation,  was  made  the  basis  of 
classification.  If  the  property  was  owned  wholly  by  the  state 
or  the  municipality,  the  corporation  was  public ;  if  owned 
wholly  or  partly  by  individual  citizens,  the  corporation  was 
private.  From  this  distinction  have  arisen  the  legal  difficul 
ties  attending  any  attempt,  on  the  part  of  the  community,  to 
control  the  great  business  corporations.  Under  the  name  of 
private  corporations,  organizations  have  grown,  up,  not  for  the 
perpetuation  of  a  great  charity,  like  a  college  or  hospital,  nor 
to  enable  a  company  of  citizens  more  conveniently  to  carry  on 
a  private  industry;  but  corporations  unknown  to  the  early  law 
writers  have  arisen,  and  to  them  have  been  committed  the  vast 
powers  of  the  railroad  and  the  telegraph,  the  great  instruments 
by  which  modern  communities  live,  move,  and  have  their  being. 

Since  the  dawn  of  history,  the  great  thoroughfares  have  be 
longed  to  the  people, —  have  been  known  as  the  king's  highways 
or  the  public  highways,  and  have  been  open  to  the  free  use  of 
all,  on  payment  of  a  small,  uniform  tax  or  toll  to  keep  them  in 
repair.  But  now  the  most  perfect,  and  by  far  the  most  impor 
tant  roads  known  to  mankind  are  owned  and  managed  as  private 
property,  by  a  comparatively  small  number  of  private  citizens. 
In  all  its  uses,  the  railroad  is  the  most  public  of  all  our  roads ; 
and  in  all  the  objects  to  which  its  work  relates,  the  railway  cor 
poration  is  as  public  as  any  organization  can  be.  But,  in  the 
/  start,  it  was  labelled  a  private  corporation ;  and,  so  far  as  its 
legal  status  is  concerned,  it  is  now  grouped  with  eleemosynary 
institutions  and  private  charities,  and  enjoys  similar  immunities 
and  exemptions.  It  remains  to  be  seen  how  long  the  commu 
nity  will  suffer  itself  to  be  the  victim  of  an  abstract  definition. 

It  will  be  readily  conceded  that  a  corporation  is  strictly  and 
really  private,  when  it  is  authorized  to  carry  on  such  a  business 
as  a  private  citizen  may  carry  on.  But  when  the  state  has  del 
egated  to  a  corporation  the  sovereign  right  of  eminent  domain, 
—  the  right  to  take  from  the  private  citizen,  without  his  con 
sent,  a  portion  of  his  real  estate,  to  build  its  structure  across 
farm,  garden,  and  lawn,  into  and  through,  over  or  under  the 
blocks,  squares,  streets,  churches,  and  dwellings  of  incorporated 
cities  and  towns,  across  navigable  rivers,  and  over  and  along 


THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC.  6 1 

public  highways,  —  it  requires  a  stretch  of  the  common  imagi 
nation,  and  much  refinement  and  subtlety  of  the  law,  to  main 
tain  the  old  fiction  that  such  an  organization  is  not  a  public 
corporation. 

In  the  famous  Dartmouth  College  Case  it  was  decided,  in  1819, 
by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  that  the  charter  of 
Dartmouth  College  is  a  contract  between  the  State  and  the  cor 
poration,  which  the  legislature  cannot  alter  without  the  consent 
of  the  corporation ;  and  that  any  such  alteration  is  void,  being 
in  conflict  with  that  clause  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  which  forbids  a  State  to  make  any  law  impairing  the 
obligation  of  contracts.  This  decision  has  stood  for  more  than 
half  a  century  as  a  monument  of  judicial  learning,  and  the  great 
safeguard  of  vested  rights.  But  Chief  Justice  Marshall  pro 
nounced  this  decision  ten  years  before  the  steam  railway  was 
born,  and  it  is  clear  he  did  not  contemplate  the  class  of  corpora 
tions  that  have  since  come  into  being.  But,  year  by  year,  the 
doctrine  of  that  case  has  been  extended  to  the  whole  class  of 
private  corporations,  including  railroad  and  telegraph  com 
panies.  But  few  of  the  States,  in  their  early  charters  to  rail 
roads,  reserved  any  effectual  control  of  the  operations  of  the 
corporations  they  created.  In  many  instances,  like  that  of  the 
Illinois  Central  charter,  the  right  to  amend  was  not  reserved. 
In  most  States  each  legislature  has  narrowed  and  abridged  the 
powers  of  its  successors,  and  enlarged  the  powers  of  the  cor 
porations  ;  and  these,  by  the  strong  grip  of  the  law,  and  in  the 
name  of  private  property  and  vested  rights,  hold  fast  all  they 
have  received.  By  these  means,  not  only  the  corporations,  but 
the  vast  railroad  and  telegraph  systems,  have  virtually  passed 
from  the  control  of  the  State.  It  is  painfully  evident,  from  the 
experience  of  the  last  few  years,  that  the  efforts  of  the  States  to 
regulate  their  railroads  have  amounted  to  but  little  more  than 
feeble  annoyance.  In  many  cases  the  corporations  have  treated 
such  efforts  as  impertinent  intermeddling,  and  have  brushed 
away  legislative  restrictions  as  easily  as  Gulliver  broke  the  cords 
with  which  the  Liliputians  attempted  to  bind  him.  In  these 
contests  the  corporations  have  become  conscious  of  their 
strength,  and  have  entered  upon  the  work  of  controlling  the 
States.  Already  they  have  captured  several  of  the  oldest  and 
strongest  of  them;  and  these  discrowned  sovereigns  now  fol 
low  in  chains  the  triumphal  chariot  of  their  conquerors.  And 


62  THE  FUTURE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

this  does  not  imply  that  merely  the  officers  and  representa 
tives  of  States  have  been  subjected  to  the  railways,  but  that 
the  corporations  have  grasped  the  sources  and  fountains  of 
power,  and  control  the  choice  of  both  officers  and  representa 
tives. 

The  private  corporation  has  another  great  advantage  over 
the  municipal  corporation.  The  jurisdiction  of  the  latter  is 
confined  to  its  own  territory ;  but  by  the  recent  constructions 
and  devices  of  the  law,  a  private  corporation,  though  it  has  no 
soul,  no  conscience,  and  can  commit  no  crime,  is  yet  a  citizen 
of  the  State  that  creates  it,  and  can  make  and  execute  contracts 
with  individuals  and  corporations  of  other  States.  Thus,  the 
way  has  been  opened  to  those  vast  consolidations  which  have 
placed  the  control  of  the  whole  system  in  the  hands  of  a  few, 
and  have  developed  the  Charlemagnes  and  the  Caesars  of  our 
internal  commerce. 

In  addition  to  these  external  conquests,  the  great  managers 
have  in  many  cases  grasped  the  private  property  of  the  cor 
porations  themselves ;  and  the  stocks  which  represent  the  in 
vestment  have  become  mere  counters  in  the  great  gambling- 
houses  of  Wall  Street,  where  the  daily  ebb  and  flow  of  the 
stock  market  sweeps  and  tosses  the  business  and  trade  of  the 
continent. 

If  these  corporations  were  in  reality  private  corporations, 
transacting  only  private  business,  the  community  might  per 
haps  stand  by  in  wonder  and  amazement  at  their  achievements ; 
but  a  great  and  vital  public  interest  is  involved  in  the  system, — 
an  interest  which  affects  the  social  and  political  organization  in 
a  thousand  ways.  Prominent  among  these  is  the  public  neces 
sity  for  means  of  transportation.  Mr.  Adams  says  that  the 
estimated  average  amount  transported  by  rail  had  risen  from 
$85  for  each  inhabitant  in  1860  to  $300  in  1870,  and  that  the 
public  are  now  paying  to  railroads  for  travel  and  transportation 
$450,000,000  per  annum,  an  average  of  $12  per  head  for  the 
whole  population.1  Two  thirds  of  this  sum,  he  says,  is  paid  for 
the  actual  work  of  transportation,  and  the  remaining  third  "  for 
the  use  of  the  capital  and  the  risk  involved  in  the  business." 
This  latter  sum  is  the  tax  on  transportation,  and  is  as  really  a 
tax  as  though  it  were  paid  on  the  grand  duplicate  of  the  State. 

1  The  amount  for  the  year  1872  is  set  down  at  $473,241,055.  Poor's  Railroad 
Manual  for  1873,  Introd.,  p.  li. 


THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC.  63 

"  In  other  words,"  quoting  from  Mr.  Adams,  "  certain  private 
individuals,  responsible  to  no  authority,  and  subject  to  no  su 
pervision,  but  looking  solely  to  their  own  interests,  or  to  those 
of  their  immediate  constituency,  yearly  levy  upon  the  American 
people  a  tax,  as  a  suitable  remuneration  of  their  private  capital, 
equal  to  one  half  of  the  expenses  of  the  United  States  govern 
ment,  including  interest  on  the  national  debt." 

I  do  not  say  that  this  tax  is  excessive ;  perhaps  it  is  not ;  but 
its  rate  is  determined,  and  the  amount  levied  and  collected,  not 
by  the  authority  of  the  state,  but  by  private  persons,  whose  chief 
concern  is  to  serve  their  own  interests. 

We  have  seen  that  the  transportation  tax  is  the  amount  paid 
to  the  companies  for  their  investment.  How  much  they  shall 
invest,  where  and  under  what  limitations  it  shall  be  invested, 
has  been  wholly  left  to  the  companies  themselves  ;  but  whether 
they  have  invested  their  capital  wisely  or  unwisely,  however 
much  the  business  may  be  overdone,  the  investors  must  be  paid 
for  the  use  of  their  capital,  and  that  payment  is  made  by  the 
community.  In  most  of  the  States,  railroads  may  be  built  in 
unlimited  numbers,  wherever  five  or  ten  men,  who  incorporate 
themselves  under  the  general  law,  may  choose  to  build  them. 
This  has  probably  been  allowed,  in  the  belief  that  free  compe 
tition  in  building  and  operating  roads  would  produce  economy 
in  the  management  and  cheapness  in  transportation.  But  this 
expectation  has  utterly  failed.  All  railroad  experience  has  ver 
ified  the  truth  of  George  Stephenson's  aphorism,  that,  "  when 
combination  is  possible,  competition  is  impossible."  Great 
Britain  has  gone  much  further  into  the  investigation  of  this 
question  than  we  have,  and  the  result  of  her  latest  study  is  thus 
expressed  in  the  London  Quarterly  Review,  of  April  last:  — 

"  By  the  common  consent  of  all  practical  men,  competition  —  the 
ordinary  safeguard  of  the  public  in  matters  of  trade  —  has  ceased  to  afford 
the  slightest  protection  (except  in  the  few  unimportant  cases  of  rival  sea 
traffic)  against  railway  monopoly 

" '  In  spite  of  the  recommendations  of  these  authorities  [Parliament 
and  Parliamentary  commissions],  combination  and  amalgamation  have 
proceeded,  at  the  instance  of  the  companies,  without  check,  and  almost 
without  regulation.  United  systems  now  exist,  constituting,  by  their 
magnitude  and  by  their  exclusive  possession  of  whole  districts,  monopo 
lies  to  which  the  earlier  authorities  would  have  been  most  strongly 
opposed.  Nor  is  there  any  reason  to  suppose  that  the  progress  of  com- 


64  THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

bination  has  ceased,  or  that  it  will  cease  until  Great  Britain  is  divided 
between  a  small  number  of  great  companies.'  " 

The  article  concludes  with  these  striking  words :  — 

"We  have  tried  the  laissez  faire  policy,  and  it  has  failed ;  we  have  tried 
a  meddlesome  policy,  and  it  has  failed  also.  We  have  now  ....  to 
meet  the  coming  day  when  all  the  railways,  having  completed  their  sev 
eral  systems,  may,  and  probably  in  their  own  interests  will,  combine 
together  to  take  advantage  of  the  public.  In  the  face  of  this  contin 
gency  we  have  simply  to  make  our  choice  between  two  alternatives,  — 
either  to  let  the  state  manage  the  railways,  or  to  let  the  railways  manage 
the  state."  x 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  we  are  repeating  the  experience  of 
Great  Britain  on  a  vast  scale.  We  have  doubled  our  miles  of 
railway  in  the  last  eight  years.  In  the  last  two  years  we  have 
built  and  put  into  operation  14,206  miles  of  road,  —  more  than 
a  quarter  of  all  we  had  in  January,  1871. 

The  cost  of  constructing  the  roads  we  are  now  operating  was 
$3,160,000,000;  and  during  the  year  1872  there  were  trans 
ported  by  rail  more  than  200,000,000  tons  of  freight.  The  pro 
cess  of  consolidation  of  our  leading  lines  of  road  has  been  even 
more  rapid  than  that  of  construction  ;  and  whatever  dangers  we 
may  expect  from  the  system  are  rapidly  culminating  to  the 
point  of  full  development.  In  antagonism  to  these  and  to  simi 
lar  combinations  of  capitalists  are  the  combinations  of  laborers 
in  trades  unions  and  labor  leagues.  The  indications  are  abun 
dant  that  we  shall  soon  see,  set  in  full  array,  a  conflict  between 
capital  and  labor,  —  a  conflict  between  forces  that  ought  not  to 
be  enemies ;  for  labor  is  the  creator  of  capital,  which  is  only 
another  name  for  accumulated  labor.  It  is  the  duty  of  states 
manship  to  study  the  relation  which  the  government  sustains 
and  ought  to  sustain  to  this  struggle,  and  to  provide  that  it  shall 
not  be  the  partisan  supporter  of  either  combatant,  but  the  just 
protector  of  both.  The  right  to  labor  has  not  been  sufficiently 
emphasized  as  one  of  the  rights  of  man.  The  right  to  enjoy 
the  fruits  of  labor  has  been  better  secured. 

In  view  of  the  facts  now  set  forth,  the  question  returns, 
What  is  likely  to  be  the  effect  of  railway  and  other  similar  com 
binations  upon  our  community  and  our  political  institutions? 
Is  it  true,  as  asserted  by  the  British  writer  quoted  above,  that 

1  London  Quarterly  Review,  (American  ed.,)  Vol.  CXXXIV.  pp.  198,  206. 


THE  FUTURE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC.  65 

the  state  must  soon  recapture  and  control  the  railroads,  or  be 
captured  and  subjugated  by  them?  Or  do  the  phenomena  we 
are  witnessing  indicate  that  general  breaking  up  of  the  social 
and  political  order  of  modern  nations  so  confidently  predicted 
by  a  class  of  philosophers  whose  opinions  have  hitherto  made 
but  little  impression  on  the  public  mind?  That  you  may  not 
neglect  this  broader  view  of  the  question,  I  will  quote  some 
sentences  written  by  Charles  Fourier,  sixty-six  years  ago, — 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  the  fire  of  the  first  steam 
locomotive  was  lighted.  After  tracing  the  course  of  civilization 
through  its  several  phases  of  development,  and  declaring  that  it 
was  then  (1808)  past  the  middle  of  its  third  phase,  and  moving 
towards  its  own  destruction,  he  said :  — 

"  Civilization  is  tending  towards  the  fourth  phase,  by  the  influence  of 
joint  stock  corporations,  which,  under  the  cover  of  certain  legal  privi 
leges,  dictate  terms  and  conditions  to  labor,  and  arbitrarily  exclude  from 
it  whomever  they  please.  These  corporations  contain  the  germ  of  a  vast 
feudal  coalition,  which  is  destined  soon  to  invade  the  whole  industrial 

and  financial  system,  and  give  birth  to  a  commercial  feudalism 

These  corporations  will  become  dangerous  and  lead  to  new  outbreaks 
and  convulsions  only  by  being  extended  to  the  whole  commercial  and 
industrial  system.  The  event  is  not  far  distant,  and  will  be  brought 

about  all  the  more  easily  from  the  fact  that  it  is  not  apprehended 

Extremes  meet ;  and  the  greater  the  extent  to  which  anarchical  com 
petition  is  carried,  the  nearer  is  the  approach  to  the  reign  of  universal 
monopoly,  which  is  the  opposite  excess.  It  is  the  fate  of  civilization  to 
be  always  balancing  between  extremes.  Circumstances  are  tending 
toward  the  organization  of  the  commercial  classes  into  federal  compa 
nies,  or  affiliated  monopolies,  which,  operating  in  conjunction  with  the 
great  landed  interest,  will  reduce  the  middle  and  laboring  classes  to  a 
state  of  commercial  vassalage,  and  by  the  influence  of  combined  action 
will  become  master  of  the  productive  industry  of  entire  nations.  The 
small  operators  will  be  forced  indirectly  to  dispose  of  their  products 
according  to  the  wishes  of  these  monopolists ;  they  will  become  mere 
agents  for  the  coalition.  We  shall  thus  see  the  reappearance  of  feudal 
ism  in  an  inverse  order,  founded  on  mercantile  leagues,  and  answering 
to  the  baronial  leagues  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Everything  is  concurring  to 

produce  this  result We  are  marching  with  rapid  strides  towards 

a  commercial  feudalism,  and  to  the  fourth  phase  of  civilization."  1 

These  declarations  read  something  like  prophecy,  so  far  as 

1  Theory  of  the  Four  Movements,  etc.,  Eng.  Trans.,  (New  York,  1857,)  pp.  198, 
207. 

VOL.   II.  5 


66  THE  FUTURE    OF  THE   REPUBLIC. 

they  relate  to  the  effects  of  combined  corporations.  New  me 
chanical  forces  have  hastened  the  development  of  corporations 
since  Fourier  wrote.  We  need  not  take  alarm  at  his  prophecy 
of  the  speedy  decay  of  civilization ;  but  the  analogy  between 
the  industrial  condition  of  society  at  the  present  time  and  the 
feudalism  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  both  striking  and  instructive. 
In  the  darkness  and  chaos  of  that  period,  the  feudal  system 
was  the  first  important  step  towards  the  organization  of  modern 
nations.  Powerful  chiefs  and  barons  intrenched  themselves  in 
castles,  and  in  return  for  submission  and  service  gave  to  their 
vassals  rude  protection  and  ruder  laws.  But  as  the  feudal 
chiefs  grew  in  power  and  wealth,  they  became  the  oppressors 
of  their  people,  taxed  and  robbed  them  at  will,  and  finally,  in 
their  arrogance,  defied  the  kings  and  emperors  of  the  mediaeval 
states.  From  their  castles,  planted  on  the  great  thoroughfares, 
they  practised  the  most  capricious  extortions  on  commerce  and 
travel,  and  thus  gave  to  modern  language  the  phrase  "  to  levy 
black  mail." l  The  consolidation  of  our  great  industrial  and 
commercial  companies,  the  power  they  wield,  and  the  relations 
they  sustain  to  the  States  and  to  the  industry  of  the  people,  do 
not  fall  far  short  of  Fourier's  definition  of  commercial  or  indus 
trial  feudalism.  The  modern  barons,  more  powerful  than  their 
military  prototypes,  own  our  greatest  highways,  and  levy  tribute 
at  will  upon  all  our  vast  industries.  And,  as  the  old  feudalism 
was  finally  controlled  and  subordinated  only  by  the  combined 
efforts  of  the  kings  and  the  people  of  the  free  cities  and  towns, 
so  our  modern  feudalism  can  be  subordinated  to  the  public 
good  only  by  the  great  body  of  the  people  acting  through  their 
governments  by  wise  and  just  laws. 

My  theme  does  not  include,  nor  will  this  occasion  permit,  the 
discussion  of  methods  by  which  this  great  work  of  adjustment 
may  be  accomplished.  But  I  refuse  to  believe  that  the  genius 
and  energy  that  have  developed  these  new  and  tremendous 
forces,  will  fail  to  make  them,  not  the  masters,  but  the  faithful 
servants  of  society.  It  will  be  a  disgrace  to  our  age  and  to  us 

1  "  A  very  large  proportion  of  the  rural  nobility  lived  by  robbery.  Their  castles, 
as  the  ruins  still  bear  witness,  were  erected  upon  inaccessible  hills,  and  in  denies 
that  command  the  public  road.  An  Archbishop  of  Cologne  having  built  a  fortress 
of  this  kind,  the  governor  inquired  how  he  was  to  maintain  himself,  no  revenue 
having  been  assigned  for  that  purpose  :  the  prelate  only  desired  him  to  remark  that 
the  castle  was  situated  near  the  junction  of  four  roads."  —  Hallam's  Middle  Ages, 
Vol.  II.  p.  95  (London,  1868). 


THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC.  67 

if  we  do  not  discover  some  method  by  which  the  public  func 
tions  of  these  organizations  may  be  brought  into  full  subordina 
tion  to  the  public,  and  that  too  without  violence,  and  without 
unjust  interference  with  the  rights  of  private  individuals.  It  will 
be  unworthy  of  our  age  and  of  us,  if  we  make  the  discussion  of 
this  subject  a  mere  warfare  against  men.  For  in  these  great  in 
dustrial  enterprises  have  been,  and  still  are,  engaged  some  of 
the  noblest  and  worthiest  men  of  our  time.  It  is  the  system, 
its  tendencies  and  its  dangers,  which  society  itself  has  pro 
duced,  that  we  are  now  to  confront.  And  these  industries  must 
not  be  crippled,  but  promoted.  The  evils  complained  of  are 
mainly  of  our  own  making.  States  and  communities  have 
willingly  and  thoughtlessly  conferred  these  great  powers  upon 
railways,  and  they  must  seek  to  rectify  their  own  errors  without 
injury  to  the  industries  they  have  encouraged. 

Already  methods  are  being  suggested.  Massachusetts  is  dis 
cussing  the  proposal  to  purchase  and  operate  a  portion  of  her 
railroad  system,  and  thus  bring  the  rest  into  competition  with 
the  State  as  the  representative  of  the  people.  It  is  claimed  that 
the  success  of  this  plan  has  been  proved  by  the  experience  of 
Belgium.  Another  proposition  is  that  the  State  purchase  the 
roads  and  open  them,  like  other  highways,  to  the  free  use  of 
the  public,  subject  to  such  regulations  and  toll  as  the  safety  of 
transportation  and  the  maintenance  of  the  system  may  require. 
This,  it  is  claimed,  would  remove  the  stocks  and  bonds  from 
the  gambling  operations  of  the  markets,  and  place  the  levying 
of  the  transportation  tax  in  the  hands  of  the  State,  and  under 
the  control  of  those  who  pay.  Others,  again,  insist  that  the 
system  has  overgrown  the  limits  and  the  powers  of  the  separate 
States,  and  must  be  taken  in  hand  by  the  national  government, 
under  that  provision  of  the  national  Constitution  which  empow 
ers  Congress  to  regulate  commerce  among  the  several  States. 
When  it  is  objected  that  this  would  be  a  great  and  dangerous 
step  towards  political  centralization, — which  many  think  has 
already  been  pushed  too  far,  —  it  is  responded  that,  as  the  rail 
way  is  the  greatest  centralizing  force  of  modern  times,  nothing 
but  a  kindred  force  can  control  it;  and  it  is  better  to  rule  it 
than  to  be  ruled  by  it.  Other  solutions  have  been  proposed ; 
but  these  are  sufficient  to  show  how  strongly  the  current  of 
public  thought  is  setting  towards  the  subject.  Indications  are 
not  wanting  that  the  discussion  will  be  attended  by  passion,  and 


68  THE  FUTURE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

by  a  full  exhibition  of  that  low,  political  cunning  which  plays 
with  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  men,  and  measures  success 
by  results,  and  not  by  the  character  of  the  means  employed.  I 
have  ventured  to  criticise  the  judicial  application  of  the  Dart 
mouth  College  case ;  and  I  venture  the  further  opinion,  that 
some  features  of  that  decision,  as  applied  to  the  railway  and 
similar  corporations,  must  give  way,  under  the  new  elements 
which  time  has  added  to  the  problem.  But  this  must  be  done, 
not  by  denouncing  judges  who  faithfully  administer  the  law,  but 
by  such  prudent  changes  in  the  law,  and  perhaps  in  our  consti 
tutions,  as  will  guide  the  courts  in  future  adjudications.1 

It  depends  upon  the  wisdom,  the  culture,  the  self-control  of 
our  people,  to  determine  how  wisely  and  how  well  this  question 
shall  be  settled.  But  that  it  will  be  solved,  and  solved  in  the 
interest  of  liberty  and  justice,  I  do  not  doubt.  And  its  solution 
will  open  the  way  to  a  solution  of  a  whole  chapter  of  similar 
questions  that  relate  to  the  conflict  between  capital  and  labor. 
The  gloomy  views  of  socialistic  writers  on  this  question  would 
have  more  force,  if  the  dangers  here  discussed  had  grown  up  in 
spite  of  our  efforts  to  prevent  them.  But  the  fact  is  they  have 
grown  by  our  help,  while  we  were  unconscious  of  the  fact  that 
they  were  dangers. 

The  intelligence  and  national  spirit  of  our  people  exhibit  their 
capacity  for  dealing  with  difficult  problems.  Those  who  saw 
the  terrible  elements  of  destruction  that  burst  upon  us  twelve 
years  ago,  in  the  fury  of  civil  war,  would  have  been  called 
dreamers  and  enthusiasts  had  they  predicted  that  1873  would 
witness  the  conflict  ended,  its  cause  annihilated,  the  bitterness 
and  hatred  it  had  occasioned  nearly  gone,  and  the  nation,  with 
union  and  unity  restored,  smiling  again  over  the  turf  of  half  a 
million  soldiers'  graves. 

Finally,  our  great  hope  for  the  future  —  our  great  safeguard 
against  danger — is  to  be  found  in  the  general  and  thorough 
education  of  our  people,  and  in  the  virtue  which  accompanies 
such  education.  And  all  these  elements  depend  in  a  large 

1  One  member  of  the  court,  Mr.  Justice  Duvall,  dissented  from  the  opinion  of 
the  Court  in  the  Dartmouth  College  case.  Even  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  in  pro 
nouncing  the  opinion  of  the  court,  used  expressions  which  would  not  at  all  apply  to 
our  railway  companies.  He  said,  "  These  eleemosynary  institutions  do  not  fill  the 
place  which  would  otherwise  be  occupied  by  the  government,  but  that  which  would 
otherwise  remain  vacant."  (4  Wheaton,  647.)  There  has  been  a  growing  dissent 
against  the  enlarged  application  of  this  principle. 


THE  FUTURE    OF  THE  REPUBLIC.  69 

measure  upon  the  intellectual  and  moral  culture  of  the  young 
men  who  go  out  from  our  higher  institutions  of  learning.  From 
the  standpoint  of  this  general  culture  we  may  trustfully  encoun 
ter  the  perils  that  assail  us.  Secure  against  dangers  from 
abroad  ;  united  at  home  by  the  strongest  ties  of  common  inter 
est  and  patriotic  pride ;  holding  and  unifying  our  vast  territory 
by  the  most  potent  forces  of  civilization ;  relying  upon  the  in 
telligent  strength  and  responsibility  of  each  citizen,  and  most 
of  all  upon  the  power  of  truth,  —  without  undue  arrogance,  we 
may  hope  that,  in  the  centuries  to  come,  our  republic  will  con 
tinue  to  live  and  hold  its  high  place  among  the  nations,  as 

" ....  the  heir  of  all  the  ages,  in  the  foremost  files  of  time." 


THE    NORTHWEST    TERRITORY: 

SETTLEMENT    OF     THE    WESTERN    RESERVE. 


ADDRESS    DELIVERED    AT    BURTON,    OHIO,    BEFORE    THE    HIS 
TORICAL  SOCIETY   OF   GEAUGA   COUNTY, 

SEPTEMBER  16,  1873. 


IN  furnishing  the  Geauga  County  Historical  Society  with  the  manu 
script  of  the  following  address,  Mr.  Garfield  sent  a  letter,  dated  Washing 
ton,  D.  C.,  December  13,  1873,  in  which  he  stated  the  sources  from 
which  he  had  drawn  his  historical  data.  The  most  valuable  part  of  the 
letter  was  a  lengthy  extract  from  his  remarks  of  February  18,  1873, 
made  on  the  following  paragraph  of  the  Miscellaneous  Appropriation 
Bill  then  pending :  "  To  enable  the  Joint  Committee  on  the  Library  to 
purchase  and  print  a  series  of  unpublished  historical  documents  relating 
to  the  early  French  discoveries  in  the  Northwest,  and  on  the  Mississippi, 
$10,000,  or  so  much  thereof  as  may  be  necessary,  the  printing  of  the  same 
to  be  under  the  direction  of  the  said  committee." 

Mr.  Garfield's  remarks  on  that  question  in  full  were  as  follows  :  — 
"  Mr.  Chairman,  —  We  appropriate  every  year  considerable  sums  of 
money  for  the  purpose  of  increasing  the  library  of  Congress.  We  pro 
pose  here  to  designate  a  particular  kind  of  purchase  which  we  desire  to 
have  made.  It  is  just  as  much  a  part  of  our  discretion  and  right  as  any 
appropriation  that  we  can  make. 

"  And  now  what  is  it  for  which  we  seek  to  provide  ?  For  the  period 
of  two  whole  centuries  the  French  were  exploring  a  great  part  of  this 
continent,  and  from  1669  to  1750  they  occupied  a  great  portion  of  the 
valley  west  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains.  Under  the  direction  of  their 
government,  learned  men,  army  officers,  men  interested  in  science,  were 
sent  out  to  make  explorations  along  the  great  rivers  of  the  Northwest, 
along  all  our  Great  Lakes,  and  through  the  Rocky  Mountains,  long  before 
a  man  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  or  a  man  speaking  the  English  language, 
had  ever  trodden  any  of  these  wilds.  They  made  full  reports  to  the 
government  at  Paris,  but  in  those  days  such  reports  were  buried  in  the 
archives  of  the  government,  and  were  considered  secret  papers.  They 


THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY.  71 

have  never  seen  the  light.  The  archivist  of  the  navy  department  of 
France,  Pierre  Margry,  has  had  possession  of  these  documents  for  years, 
and  has  with  great  pains  transcribed  them.  I  have  received  a  letter  from 
the  greatest  of  our  recent  historians,  Mr.  Francis  Parkman,  in  which  he 
says  :  '  I  have  known  about  this  collection  many  years,  and  have  several 
times  seen  it,  and  examined  it  sufficiently  to  get  a  clear  idea  of  its  con 
tents.  Many  of  the  most  important  documents  composing  it  have  been 
in  my  hands.  I  can  testify  in  the  strongest  terms  to  its  rare  value  for 
the  history  of  the  West.  To  the  best  of  my  belief,  none  of  these  docu 
ments  which  M.  Margry  now  proposes  to  print  have  ever  been  in  print 
before.' 

"  M.  Margry  has  prepared  for  publication  matter  that  will  make  nine 
volumes,  according  to  the  testimony  before  the  committee.  Three  vol 
umes  relate  to  the  discoveries  of  La  Salle  and  his  companions,  Joutel, 
Tonty,  Galinier,  and  Dollier  de  Casson ;  one,  to  La  Mothe  Cadillac,  and 
the  settlement  of  Detroit ;  two,  to  discoveries  and  explorations  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  in  1752,  by  De  Niseville  and  the  brothers  La  Veran- 
drye  ;  one,  to  Fort  Du  Quesne  and  Natchitoches  ;  two,  to  the  settlement 
of  Louisiana.  The  volumes  will  be  published  by  M.  Margry,  under  his 
own  direction,  if  he  can  be  assured  of  a  subscription  to  a  certain  number 
of  copies  in  advance,  to  be  paid  for  only  when  the  volumes  are  delivered. 

"  Now  a  book  of  this  sort  will  be  little  popular  in  France,  as  it  relates 
to  so  distant  a  country ;  but,  here  at  home,  and  especially  in  the  great 
Northwest,  it  will  be  of  vital  interest,  as  adding  to  our  knowledge  of  our 
ancient  history;  and  we  propose,  in  putting  this  $10,000  into  the  hands 
of  the  Committee  on  the  Library,  that,  instead  of  placing  on  our  shelves 
a  great  number  of  the  worthless  books  that  always  find  their  way  there, 
they  shall  put  in  this  work  of  inestimable  historical  value,  which  cannot 
be  duplicated  elsewhere,  which  cannot  be  published  except  by  the  gov 
ernment,  and  which  may  be  lost,  and  was  so  near  being  lost  in  the  late 
war  of  the  Commune.  It  seems  to  me  that  no  wiser  or  more  appropriate 
use  could  be  made  of  any  amount  which  we  may  devote  to  the  library." 

This  appropriation  was  made.  In  1881,  the  fourth  volume  of  the 
Margry  Papers  was  published. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN  AND  FELLOW-CITIZENS, — When  I  ac 
cepted  the  invitation  to  address  you  on  this  interesting 
occasion,  I  did  not  assume  that  I  could  contribute  anything  in 
the  way  of  original  materials  to  the  history  of  this  portion  of 
the  Western  Reserve.  I  hoped,  however,  that  I  might  be  able 
to  point  out  some  of  the  resources  from  which  these  materials 
may  be  drawn,  and  to  express  my  interest  in  the  effort  you  are 


72  THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY. 

making  to  rescue  a  portion  of  them  from  the  destroying  hand 
of  time. 

From  the  historian's  standpoint,  our  country  is  peculiarly  and 
exceptionally  fortunate.  The  origin  of  nearly  all  great  nations, 
ancient  and  modern,  is  shrouded  in  fable  or  traditionary  legend. 
The  story  of  the  founding  of  Rome  by  the  wolf-nursed  brothers, 
Romulus  and  Remus,  has  long  been  classed  among  the  myths 
of  history ;  and  the  more  modern  story  of  Hengist  and  Horsa's 
leading  the  Saxons  to  England,  is  almost  equally  legendary. 
The  origin  of  Paris  can  never  be  known.  Its  foundation  was 
laid  long  before  Gaul  had  written  records.  But  the  settlement, 
civilization,  and  political  institutions  of  our  country  can  be 
traced  from  their  first  hour  by  the  clear  light  of  history.  It  is 
true  that  over  this  continent  hangs  an  impenetrable  veil  of  tra 
dition,  mystery,  and  silence.  But  it  is  the  tradition  of  races 
fast  passing  away;  the  mystery  of  a  still  earlier  race,  which 
flourished  and  perished  long  before  its  discovery  by  the  Euro 
peans.  The  story  of  the  mound-builders  can  never  be  told. 
The  fate  of  the  Indian  tribes  will  soon  be  a  half-forgotten  tale. 
But  the  history  of  European  civilization  and  institutions  on  this 
continent  can  be  traced  with  precision  and  fulness,  unless  we 
become  forgetful  of  the  past,  and  neglect  to  save  and  perpetu 
ate  its  precious  memorials. 

In  discussing  the  scope  of  historical  study  in  reference  to 
our  country,  I  will  call  attention  to  a  few  general  facts  con 
cerning  its  discovery  and  settlement. 

First.     The  romantic  period  of  discovery  on  this  continent. 

There  can  scarcely  be  found  in  the  realms  of  romance  any 
thing  more  fascinating  than  the  records  of  discovery  and  ad 
venture  during  the  two  centuries  that  followed  the  landing  of 
Columbus  on  the  soil  of  the  New  World.  The  greed  for  gold, 
the  passion  for  adventure,  the  spirit  of  chivalry,  the  enthusiasm 
and  fanaticism  of  religion,  all  conspired  to  throw  into  America 
the  hardiest  and  most  daring  spirits  of  Europe,  and  made  the 
vast  wilderness  of  the  New  World  the  theatre  of  as  stirring 
achievements  as  history  has  recorded. 

Early  in  the  sixteenth  century,  Spain,  turning  from  the  con 
quest  of  Granada  and  her  triumph  over  the  Moors,  followed  her 
golden  dreams  of  the  New  World  with  the  same  spirit  that  in 
an  earlier  day  animated  her  crusaders.  In  1512,  Ponce  de  Leon 
began  his  search  for  the  fountain  of  perpetual  youth,  the  tradi- 


THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY.  73 

tion  of  which  he  had  learned  among  the  natives  of  the  West 
Indies.  He  discovered  the  low-lying  coasts  of  Florida,  and 
explored  its  interior.  Instead  of  the  fountain  of  youth,  he 
found  his  grave  among  its  everglades.  A  few  years  later,  De 
Soto,  who  had  accompanied  Pizarro  in  the  conquest  of  Peru, 
landed  in  Florida  with  a  gallant  array  of  knights  and  nobles, 
and  commenced  his  explorations  through  the  Western  wilder 
ness.  In  1541,  he  reached  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  River, 
and,  crossing  it,  pushed  his  discoveries  westward  over  the  great 
plains;  but,  finding  neither  the  gold  nor  the  South  Sea  of  his 
dreams,  he  returned  to  be  buried  in  the  waters  of  the  great 
river  that  he  had  discovered. 

While  England  was  more  leisurely  exploring  the  bays  and 
rivers  of  the  Atlantic  coast,  and  searching  for  gold  and  peltry, 
the  chevaliers  and  priests  of  France  were  chasing  their  dreams 
in  the  North,  searching  for  a  passage  to  Asia  and  the  realms 
of  far  Cathay,  and  telling  the  mystery  of  the  cross  to  the  Indian 
tribes  of  the  Far  West.  Coasting  northward,  her  bold  naviga 
tors  discovered  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence;  and,  in  1535, 
Cartier  sailed  up  its  broad  current  to  the  rocky  heights  of 
Quebec,  and  to  the  rapids  above  Montreal,  which  were  after 
wards  named  La  Chine  in  derision  of  the  belief  that  the  adven 
turers  were  about  to  find  China.  In  1609,  Champlain  pushed 
above  the  rapids,  and  discovered  the  beautiful  lake  that  bears 
his  name.  In  1615,  Father  Le  Caron  pushed  northward  and 
westward  through  the  wilderness,  and  discovered  Lake  Huron. 
In  1639,  the  Jesuit  missionaries  founded  the  Mission  St.  Mary. 
In  1654,  another  priest  had  entered  the  wilderness  of  Northern 
New  York,  and  found  the  salt  springs  of  Onondaga.  In  1659- 
60,  French  traders  and  priests  passed  the  winter  on  Lake  Supe 
rior,  and  established  missions  along  its  shores. 

Among  the  earlier  discoverers,  no  name  shines  out  with  more 
brilliancy  than  that  of  Rene-Robert  Cavelier,  Sieur  de  la  Salle. 
The  story  of  his  explorations  can  scarcely  be  equalled  in  roman 
tic  interest  by  any  of  the  stirring  tales  of  the  crusaders.  Born 
of  a  proud  and  wealthy  family  in  the  North  of  France,  he  was 
destined  for  the  service  of  the  Church  and  of  the  Jesuit  order. 
But  his  restless  spirit,  fired  with  the  love  of  adventure,  broke 
away  from  ecclesiastical  restraints  to  confront  the  dangers  of 
the  New  World,  and  extend  the  empire  of  Louis  XIV.  From 
the  best  evidence  accessible,  it  appears  that  he  was  the  first 


74  THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY. 

white  man  who  saw  the  Ohio  River.  At  twenty-six  years  of 
age,  we  find  him  with  a  small  party  near  the  western  extremity 
of  Lake  Ontario,  boldly  entering  the  domain  of  the  dreaded 
Iroquois,  travelling  southward  and  westward  through  the  win 
try  wilderness  until  he  reached  a  branch  of  the  Ohio,  probably 
the  Alleghany.  He  followed  it  to  the  main  stream,  and  de 
scended  that,  until,  in  the  winter  of  1669-70,  he  reached  the 
Falls  of  the  Ohio,  near  the  present  site  of  Louisville.  His  com 
panions  refusing  to  go  further,  he  returned  to  Quebec  and  pre 
pared  for  still  greater  undertakings. 

At  the  same  time  the  Jesuit  missionaries  were  pushing  their 
discoveries  on  the  Northern  Lakes.  In  1673,  Joliet  and  Mar- 
quette  started  from  Green  Bay,  dragging  their  canoes  up  the 
rapids  of  Fox  River,  crossed  Lake  VVinnebago,  found  Indian 
guides  to  conduct  them  to  the  waters  of  the  Wisconsin,  de 
scended  that  stream,  and,  on  the  I7th  of  June,  reached  the 
Mississippi  near  the  spot  where  now  stands  the  city  of  Prairie  du 
Chien.  To-morrow  will  be  the  two  hundredth  anniversary  of 
that  discovery.  One  hundred  and  forty-two  years  before  that 
time,  De  Soto  had  seen  the  same  river  more  than  a  thousand 
miles  below;  but  during  that  interval  it  is  not  known  that  any 
white  man  had  looked  upon  its  waters. 

Turning  southward,  these  brave  priests  descended  the  great 
river,  amid  the  awful  solitudes.  The  stones  of  demons  and  mon 
sters  of  the  wilderness,  which  abounded  among  the  Indian  tribes, 
did  not  deter  them  from  pushing  their  discoveries.  They  con 
tinued  their  journey  southward  to  the  mouth  of  the  Arkansas 
River,  telling  as  best  they  could  the  story  of  the  cross  to  the 
wild  tribes  along  the  shores.  Returning  by  way  of  the  Kas- 
kaskia,  and  travelling  thence  to  Lake  Michigan,  they  reached 
Green  Bay  at  the  end  of  September,  1673,  having  on  their  jour 
ney  paddled  their  canoes  more  than  twenty-five  hundred  miles. 
Marquette  remained  to  establish  missions  among  the  Indians, 
and  to  die,  three  years  later,  on  the  eastern  shore  of  Lake 
Michigan,  while  Joliet  returned  to  Quebec  to  report  his  dis 
coveries. 

In  the  mean  time,  Count  Frontenac,  a  noble  of  France,  had 
been  made  Governor  of  Canada,  and  found  in  La  Salle  a  fit 
counsellor  and  assistant  in  his  vast  schemes  of  discovery.  La 
Salle  was  sent  to  France,  to  enlist  the  court  and  the  ministers  of 
Louis  XIV. ;  and  in  1678  returned  to  Canada,  with  full  power 


THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY.  75 

under  Frontenac  to  carry  forward  his  grand  enterprises.  He 
had  developed  three  great  purposes :  first,  to  realize  the  old 
plan  of  Champlain,  the  finding  of  a  pathway  to  China  across 
the  American  continent;  second,  to  occupy  and  develop  the 
regions  of  the  Northern  Lakes ;  and,  third,  to  descend  the  Mis 
sissippi  and  establish  a  fortified  post  at  its  mouth,  thus  securing 
an  outlet  for  the  trade  of  the  interior,  and  checking  the  progress 
of  Spain  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

In  pursuance  of  this  plan,  we  find  La  Salle  and  his  compan 
ions,  in  January,  1679,  dragging  their  cannon  and  materials  for 
building  a  ship  around  the  Falls  of  Niagara,  and  laying  the  keel 
of  a  vessel  two  leagues  above  the  cataract,  at  the  mouth  of 
Cayuga  Creek.  She  was  a  schooner  of  forty-five'  tons  burden, 
and  was  named  "  The  Griffin."  On  the  7th  of  August,  1679, 
with  an  armament  of  five  cannon,  and  a  crew  and  company  of 
thirty-four  men,  she  started  on  her  voyage  up  Lake  Erie,  the 
first  sail  ever  spread  over  the  waters  of  that  lake.  On  the  fourth 
day  she  entered  Detroit  River;  and,  after  encountering  a  terri 
ble  storm  on  Lake  Huron,  passed  the  straits,  and  reached  Green 
Bay  early  in  September.  A  few  weeks  later  she  started  back 
for  Niagara,  laden  with  furs,  but  was  never  heard  from  again. 

While  awaiting  the  supplies  which  the  Griffin  was  expected 
to  bring,  La  Salle  explored  Lake  Michigan  to  its  southern 
extremity,  ascended  the  Saint  Joseph,  crossed  the  portage  to 
the  Kankakee,  descended  the  Illinois,  and,  landing  at  an  In 
dian  village  on  the  site  of  the  present  village  of  Utica,  Illinois, 
celebrated  mass  on  New  Year's  Day,  1680.  Before  the  winter 
was  ended  he  became  certain  that  the  Griffin  was  lost.  But, 
undaunted  by  his  disasters,  on  the  3d  of  March,  with  five  com 
panions,  he  began  the  incredible  feat  of  making  the  journey  to 
Quebec  on  foot,  in  the  dead  of  winter.  This  he  accomplished. 
He  reorganized  his  expedition,  conquered  every  difficulty,  and, 
on  the  2  ist  of  December,  1681,  with  a  party  of  fifty-four 
Frenchmen  and  friendly  Indians,  set  out  for  the  present  site  of 
Chicago,  and,  by  way  of  the  Illinois  River,  reached  the  Missis 
sippi,  February  6,  1682.  He  descended  its  stream,  and  on  the 
9th  of  April,  1682,  standing  on  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Mex 
ico,  solemnly  proclaimed  to  his  companions  and  to  the  wilder 
ness,  that  in  the  name  of  Louis  the  Great  he  took  possession 
of  the  great  valley  watered  by  the  Mississippi  River.  He  set 
up  a  column,  and  inscribed  upon  it  the  arms  of  France,  and 


76  THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY. 

named  the  country  Louisiana.  Upon  this  act  rested  the  claim 
of  France  to  the  vast  region  stretching  from  the  Alleghany  to 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  from  the  Rio  Grande  and  the  Gulf  to  the 
farthest  springs  of  the  Missouri. 

I  will  not  follow  further  the  career  of  the  great  explorers. 
Enough  has  been  said  to  exhibit  the  spirit  and  character  of  their 
work.  I  would  I  were  able  to  inspire  the  young  men  of  this 
country  with  a  desire  to  read  the  history  of  these  stirring  days 
of  discovery,  which  opened  up  to  Europe  the  mysteries  of  this 
New  World.  Theodore  Irving  has  well  said  of  their  work,  — 

"  It  was  poetry  put  in  action ;  it  was  the  knight-errantry  of  the  Old 
World  carried  into  the  depths  of  the  American  wilderness ;  indeed,  the 
personal  adventures,  the  feats  of  individual  prowess,  the  picturesque 
descriptions  of  steel-clad  cavaliers,  with  lance  and  helm  and  prancing 
steed,  glittering  through  the  wilderness  of  Florida,  Georgia,  Alabama, 
and  the  prairies  of  the  Far  West,  would  seem  to  us  mere  fictions  of  ro 
mance,  did  they  not  come  to  us  recorded  in  the  matter  of  fact  narratives 
of  contemporaries,  and  corroborated  by  minute  and  daily  memoranda  of 
eyewitnesses."  l 

Second.     The  struggle  for  national  dominion. 

I  next  invite  your  attention  to  the  less  stirring,  but  not  less 
important,  struggle  for  the  possession  of  the  New  World,  which 
succeeded  the  period  of  discovery. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  North  America 
was  claimed  mainly  by  three  great  powers.  Spain  held  posses 
sion  of  Mexico,  and  a  belt  reaching  eastward  to  the  Atlantic, 
and  northward  to  the  southern  line  of  Georgia,  except  a  portion 
near  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  held  by  the  French.  Eng 
land  held  from  the  Spanish  line  on  the  south  to  the  Northern 
Lakes  and  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  westward  to  the  Alleghanies. 
France  held  all  north  of  the  Lakes  and  west  of  the  Alleghanies, 
and  southward  to  the  possessions  of  Spain.  Some  of  the  boun 
dary  lines  were  but  vaguely  defined ;  others  were  disputed ;  but 
the  general  outlines  were  as  stated. 

Besides  the  struggle  for  national  possession,  the  religious 
element  entered  largely  into  the  contest.  It  was  a  struggle 
between  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  faiths.  The  Protestant 
colonies  of  England  were  enveloped  on  three  sides  by  the  vig 
orous  and  perfectly  organized  Catholic  powers  of  France  and 

1  The  Conquest  of  Florida  by  Hernando  de  Soto,  by  Theodore  Irving,  p.  24 
(New  York,  1869). 


THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY.  77 

Spain.  Indeed,  at  an  early  date,  by  the  Bull  of  Pope  Alexan 
der  VI.,  all  America  had  been  given  to  the  Spaniards.  But 
France,  with  a  zeal  equal  to  that  of  Spain,  had  entered  the  lists 
to  contest  for  the  prize.  So  far  as  the  religious  struggle  was 
concerned,  the  efforts  of  France  and  Spain  were  resisted  only 
by  the  Protestants  of  the  Atlantic  coast. 

The  main  chain  of  the  Alleghanies  was  supposed  to  be  im 
passable  until  1714,  when  Governor  Spotswood  of  Virginia  led 
an  expedition  to  discover  a  pass  to  the  great  valley  beyond. 
He  found  one  somewhere  near  the  western  boundary  of  Vir 
ginia,  and  by  it  descended  to  the  Ohio.  On  his  return,  he 
established  the  "  Transmontane  Order,"  or  "  Knights  of  the 
Golden  Horseshoe."  On  the  sandy  plains  of  Eastern  Virginia 
horseshoes  were  rarely  used,  but  in  climbing  the  mountains  he 
had  found  them  necessary;  and,  on  creating  his  companions 
knights  of  this  new  order,  he  gave  to  each  a  golden  horseshoe, 
inscribed  with  the  motto,  "  Sic  jurat  transcendere  montes." 

Spotswood  represented  to  the  British  ministry  the  great  im 
portance  of  planting  settlements  in  the  Western  valley ;  and,  with 
the  foresight  of  a  statesman,  pointed  out  the  danger  of  allowing 
the  French  the  undisputed  possession  of  that  rich  region. 

The  progress  of  England  had  been  slower,  but  more  certain, 
than  that  of  her  great  rival.  While  the  French  were  establish 
ing  trading-posts  at  points  widely  remote  from  each  other,  along 
the  Lakes  and  the  Mississippi,  and  in  the  wilderness  of  Ohio, 
Indiana,  and  Illinois,  the  English  were  slowly  but  firmly  plant 
ing  their  settlements  on  the  Atlantic  slope,  and  preparing  to 
contest  the  rich  prize  of  the  Great  West.  They  possessed  one 
great  advantage  over  their  French  rivals.  They  had  cultivated 
the  friendship  of  the  Iroquois  confederacy,  the  most  powerful 
combination  of  Indian  tribes  known  to  the  New  World.  That 
confederacy  held  possession  of  the  southern  shores  of  Lakes 
Ontario  and  Erie ;  and  their  hostility  to  the  French  had  con 
fined  the  settlements  of  that  people  mainly  to  the  northern 
shores.  During  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  many 
treaties  were  made  by  the  English  with  these  confederated 
tribes,  and  some  valuable  grants  of  land  were  obtained  on  the 
eastern  slope  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  About  the  middle  of 
that  century,  the  British  government  began  to  recognize  the 
wisdom  of  Governor  Spotswood,  and  perceived  that  an  empire 
was  soon  to  be  saved  or  lost. 


;8  THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY. 

In  1748  a  company  was  organized  by  Thomas  Lee,  and  Law 
rence  and  Augustine  Washington,  under  the  name  of  the  Ohio 
Company,  and  received  a  royal  grant  of  half  a  million  acres 
of  land  in  the  valley  of  the  Ohio.  In  1751  a  British  trading- 
post  was  established  on  the  Big  Miami ;  but  in  the  following 
year  it  was  destroyed  by  the  French.  Many  similar  efforts  of 
the  English  colonists  were  resisted  by  the  French,  and  during 
the  years  1751—53  it  became  manifest  that  a  great  struggle 
was  imminent  between  the  French  and  the  English  for  the 
possession  of  the  West.  The  British  ministers  were  too  much 
absorbed  in  intrigues  at  home  to  appreciate  the  importance  of 
this  contest;  and  they  did  but  little  more  than  to  permit  the 
colonists  to  protect  their  rights  in  the  valley  of  the  Ohio. 

In  1753  the  Ohio  Company  had  opened  a  road,  by  Will's 
Creek,  into  the  Western  valley,  and  were  preparing  to  locate 
their  colony.  At  the  same  time,  the  French  had  sent  a  force  to 
occupy  and  hold  the  line  of  the  Ohio.  As  the  Ohio  Company 
was  under  the  especial  protection  of  Virginia,  the  Governor  of 
that  Colony  determined  to  send  a  messenger  to  the  commander 
of  the  French  forces,  and  demand  the  reason  for  invading  the 
British  dominions.  For  this  purpose,  he  selected  George  Wash 
ington,  then  twenty-one  years  of  age,  who,  with  six  companions, 
set  out  from  Williamsburg,  in  the  middle  of  November,  for  the 
waters  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Lakes.  After  a  journey  of  nine  days 
through  sleet  and  snow,  he  reached  the  Ohio  at  the  junction  of 
the  Alleghany  and  the  Monongahela;  and  his  quick  eye  seemed 
to  foresee  the  destiny  of  the  place.  "  I  spent  some  time,"  said 
he,  "  in  viewing  the  rivers.  The  land  in  the  Fork  has  the  abso 
lute  command  of  both."  On  this  spot  Fort  Pitt  was  afterwards 
built,  and  still  later  the  city  of  Pittsburg.  As  Bancroft  has  said, 
"  After  creating  in  imagination  a  fortress  and  a  city,  he  and  his 
party  swam  their  horses  across  the  Alleghany,  and  wrapped  their 
blankets  around  them  for  the  night  on  its  northwest  bank." 
Proceeding  down  the  Ohio  to  Logstown,  he  held  a  council  with 
the  Shawnees  and  the  Delawares,  who  promised  to  secure  the  aid 
of  the  Six  Nations  in  resisting  the  French.  He  then  proceeded 
to  the  French  posts  at  Venango  and  Fort  Le  Bceuf  (the  latter 
fifteen  miles  from  Lake  Erie),  and  warned  the  commanders  that 
the  rights  of  Virginia  must  not  be  invaded.  He  received  for  his 
answer,  that  the  French  would  seize  every  Englishman  in  the 
Ohio  Valley.  Returning  to  Virginia  in  January,  1754,  he  re- 


THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY.  79 

ported  to  the  Governor,  and  immediate  preparations  were  made 
by  the  Colonists  to  maintain  their  rights  in  the  West,  and  resist 
the  incursions  of  the  French.  In  this  movement  originated  the 
first  important  military  union  among  the  English  Colonists. 

Although  peace  still  existed  between  France  and  England, 
formidable  preparations  were  made  by  the  latter  to  repel 
encroachments  on  the  frontier,  from  Ohio  to  the  Gulf  of  St. 
Lawrence.  Braddock  was  sent  to  America,  and  in  1755,  at 
Alexandria,  he  planned  four  expeditions  against  the  French. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  speak  in  detail  of  the  war  that  followed. 
After  Braddock's  defeat  near  the  forks  of  the  Ohio,  which  oc 
curred  on  the  9th  of  July,  1755,  England  herself  took  active 
measures  for  prosecuting  the  war.  On  the  25th  of  November, 
1758,  Forbes  captured  Fort  Duquesne,  which  thus  passed  into 
the  possession  of  the  English,  and  was  named  Fort  Pitt,  in 
honor  of  the  great  minister.  In  1759  Quebec  was  captured  by 
General  Wolfe,  and  the  same  year  Niagara  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  English.  In  1760  an  English  force  under  Major  Rogers 
moved  westward  from  Niagara,  to  occupy  the  French  posts 
on  the  Upper  Lakes.  They  coasted  along  the  south  shore  of 
Erie, — the  first  considerable  body  of  English-speaking  people 
that  sailed  its  waters.  Near  the  mouth  of  the  Grand  River,  they 
met  in  council  the  great  warrior  Pontiac  and  his  chiefs.  Three 
weeks  later,  they  took  possession  of  Detroit.  "  Thus,"  says 
Mr.  Bancroft,  "was  Michigan  won  by  Great  Britain,  yet  not  for 
itself.  There  were  those  who  foresaw  that  the  acquisition  of 
Canada  was  the  prelude  of  American  independence."  Late  in 
December,  Rogers  returned  to  the  Maumee,  and,  setting  out 
from  the  point  where  Sandusky  City  now  stands,  crossed  the 
Huron  River  to  the  northern  branch  of  White  Woman's  River, 
and  passing  thence  by  the  English  village  of  Beaverstown,  and 
up  the  Ohio,  reached  Fort  Pitt  on  the  23d  of  January,  1761,  just 
a  month  after  he  left  Detroit. 

Under  the  leadership  of  Pitt,  England  was  finally  triumphant 
in  this  great  struggle ;  and  by  the  treaty  of  Paris,  of  February 
10,  1763,  she  acquired  Canada  and  all  the  territory  east  of  the 
Mississippi  River  and  southward  to  the  Spanish  possessions, 
excepting  New  Orleans  and  the  island  on  which  it  is  situated. 

During  the  twelve  years  which  followed  the  treaty  of  Paris, 
the  English  Colonists  were  pushing  their  settlements  into  the 
newly  acquired  territory ;  but  they  encountered  the  opposition 


80  THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY. 

of  the  Six  Nations  and  their  allies,  who  made  fruitless  efforts  to 
capture  the  British  posts  of  Detroit,  Niagara,  and  Fort  Pitt. 
At  length,  in  1768,  Sir  William  Johnson  concluded  a  treaty 
at  Fort  Stanwix  with  these  tribes,  by  which  all  the  lands  south 
of  the  Ohio  and  the  Alleghany  were  sold  to  the  British,  the 
Indians  to  remain  in  undisturbed  possession  of  the  territory 
north  and  west  of  those  rivers.  New  companies  were  organized 
to  occupy  the  territory  thus  obtained.  "  Among  the  foremost 
speculators  in  Western  lands  at  that  time,"  says  the  author  of 
"Annals  of  the  West,"  *  "was  George  Washington."  In  1769 
he  was  one  of  the  signers  of  a  petition  to  the  King  for  a  grant 
of  two  and  a  half  millions  of  acres  in  the  West.  In  1770  he 
crossed  the  mountains  and  descended  the  Ohio  to  the  mouth  of 
the  Great  Kanawha,  to  locate  the  ten  thousand  acres  to  which 
he  was  entitled  for  services  in  the  French  war.  Virginians  now 
planted  settlements  in  Kentucky,  and  pioneers  from  all  the  Col 
onies  began  to  occupy  the  frontiers,  from  the  Alleghany  to  the 
Tennessee. 

Third.  The  war  of  the  Revolution,  and  its  relations  to  the 
West. 

How  came  the  thirteen  Colonies  to  possess  the  valley  of  the 
Mississippi?  The  object  of  their  struggle  was  independence, 
and  yet,  by  the  treaty  of  peace  in  1783,  not  only  was  the  inde 
pendence  of  the  thirteen  Colonies  conceded,  but  there  was 
granted  to  the  new  republic  a  Western  territory  bounded  by  the 
Northern  Lakes,  the  Mississippi,  and  the  French  and  Spanish 
possessions.  How  did  these  hills  and  valleys  become  a  part  of 
the  United  States?  It  is  true  that,  by  virtue  of  royal  charters, 
several  of  the  Colonies  set  up  claims  extending  to  the  "  South 
Sea."  The  knowledge  which  the  English  possessed  of  the  ge 
ography  of  this  country,  at  that  time,  is  illustrated  by  the  fact 
that  Captain  John  Smith  was  commissioned  to  sail  up  the 
Chickahominy,  and  find  a  passage  to  China !  But  the  claims 
of  the  Colonies  were  too  vague  to  be  of  any  consequence  in 
determining  the  boundaries  of  the  two  governments.  Virginia 
had  indeed  extended  her  settlements  into  the  region  south  of  the 
Ohio  River,  and  during  the  Revolution  had  annexed  that  country 
to  the  Old  Dominion,  calling  it  the  county  of  Kentucky.  But 
previous  to  the  Revolution,  the  Colonies  had  taken  no  such 
action  in  reference  to  the  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio. 

1  J.  H.  Perkins.     St.  Louis,  1050. 


THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY.  8r 

The  cession  of  that  great  territory,  under  the  treaty  of  1783, 
was  due  mainly  to  the  foresight,  the  courage,  and  the  endurance 
of  one  man,  who  never  received  from  his  country  any  adequate 
recognition  for  his  great  service.  That  man  was  George  Rogers 
Clarke ;  and  it  is  worth  your  while  to  consider  the  work  that  he 
accomplished.  Born  in  Virginia,  he  was  in  early  life  a  surveyor, 
and  afterwards  served  in  Lord  Dunmore's  war.  In  1776,  he 
settled  in  Kentucky,  and  was  in  fact  the  founder  of  that  Com 
monwealth.  As  the  war  of  the  Revolution  progressed,  he  saw 
that  the  pioneers  west  of  the  Alleghanies  were  threatened  by 
two  formidable  dangers :  first,  by  the  Indians,  many  of  whom 
had  joined  the  standard  of  Great  Britain ;  and  second,  by  the 
success  of  the  war  itself;  for,  should  the  Colonies  obtain  their 
independence  while  the  British  held  possession  of  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley,  the  Alleghanies  would  be  the  western  boundary  of 
the  new  republic,  and  the  pioneers  of  the  West  would  remain 
subject  to  Great  Britain. 

Inspired  by  these  views,  he  made  two  journeys  to  Virginia 
to  represent  the  case  to  the  authorities  of  that  Colony.  Fail 
ing  to  impress  the  House  of  Burgesses  with  the  importance 
of  warding  off  these  dangers,  he  appealed  to  the  Governor, 
Patrick  Henry,  and  received  from  him  authority  to  enlist  seven 
companies  to  go  to  Kentucky  subject  to  his  orders,  and  to 
serve  for  three  months  after  their  arrival  in  the  West.  This 
was  a  public  commission.  Another  document,  bearing  date 
Williamsburg,  January  2,  1778,  was  a  secret  commission,  which 
authorized  him,  in  the  name  of  Virginia,  to  capture  the  military 
posts  held  by  the  British  in  the  Northwest.  Armed  with  this 
authority,  he  proceeded  to  Pittsburg,  where  he  obtained  am 
munition,  and  floated  it  down  the  river  to  Kentucky.  He 
succeeded  in  enlisting  seven  companies  of  pioneers,  and  in 
the  month  of  June,  1778,  commenced  his  march  through  the 
untrodden  wilderness  to  the  region  of  the  Illinois.  With  a 
daring  that  is  scarcely  equalled  in  the  annals  of  war,  he  cap 
tured  the  garrisons  of  Kaskaskia,  Kahokia,  and  Vincennes,  sent 
his  prisoners  to  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  and  by  his  energy 
and  skill  won  over  the  French  inhabitants  of  that  region  to 
the  American  cause. 

In  October,  1778,  the  House  of  Burgesses  passed  an  act 
declaring  that  "  all  the  citizens  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Vir 
ginia,  who  are  already  settled  there,  or  shall  hereafter  be  set- 

VOL.    II.  6 


82  THE   NORTHWEST  TERRITORY. 

tied  on  the  west  side  of  the  Ohio,  shall  be  included  in  the 
District  of  Kentucky,  which  shall  be  called  Illinois  County." 
In  other  words,  George  Rogers  Clarke  conquered  the  Northwest 
Territory  in  the  name  of  Virginia,  and  the  flag  of  the  republic 
covered  it  at  the  close  of  the  war. 

In  negotiating  the  treaty  of  peace  at  Paris,  in  1783,  the  British 
commissioners  insisted  on  the  Ohio  River  as  the  northwestern 
boundary  of  the  United  States;  and  it  was  found  that  the  only 
tenable  ground  on  which  the  American  commissioners  could 
sustain  our  claim  to  the  Lakes  and  the  Mississippi  as  the  boun 
dary,  was  the  fact  that  George  Rogers  Clarke  had  conquered 
the  country,  and  Virginia  was  in  undisputed  possession  of  it  at 
the  cessation  of  hostilities.  Judge  Burnet  says :  "  That  fact  [the 
capture  of  the  British  posts]  was  affirmed  and  admitted,  and 
was  the  chief  ground  on  which  the  British  commissioners  re 
luctantly  abandoned  their  claim."  1 

It  is  a  stain  upon  the  honor  of  our  country  that  such  a  man 
—  the  leader  of  pioneers  who  made  the  first  lodgment  on  the 
site  now  occupied  by  Louisville,  who  was  in  fact  the  founder  of 
the  State  of  Kentucky,  and  who  by  his  personal  foresight  and 
energy  gave  nine  great  States  to  the  republic  —  was  allowed 
to  sink  under  a  load  of  debt  incurred  for  the  honor  and  glory 
of  his  country. 

In  1799,  Judge  Burnet  rode  some  ten  or  twelve  miles  from 
Louisville  into  the  country  to  visit  this  veteran  hero.  He  says 
he  was  induced  to  make  this  visit  by  the  veneration  he  enter 
tained  for  Clarke's  military  talents  and  services.  This  is  Bur- 
net's  description :  — 

"  He  had  the  appearance  of  a  man  born  to  command,  and  fitted  by 
nature  for  his  destiny.  There  was  a  gravity  and  solemnity  in  his 
demeanor,  resembling  that  which  so  eminently  distinguished  the  ven 
erated  father  of  his  country.  A  person  familiar  with  the  lives  and 
character  of  the  military  veterans  of  Rome,  in  the  days  of  her  greatest 
power,  might  readily  have  selected  this  remarkable  man  as  a  specimen 
of  the  model  he  had  formed  of  them  in  his  own  mind ;  but  he  was 
rapidly  falling  a  victim  to  his  extreme  sensibility,  and  to  the  ingratitude 
of  his  native  State,  under  whose  banner  he  had  fought  bravely  and  with 
great  success. 

"  The  time  will  certainly  come  when  the  enlightened  and  magnani 
mous  citizens  of  Louisville  will  remember  the  debt  of  gratitude  they  owe 

1   Notes  on  the  Early  Settlement  of  the  Northwestern  Territory,  p.  77. 


THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY.  83 

the  memory  of  that  distinguished  man.  He  was  the  leader  of  the  pio 
neers  who  made  the  first  lodgment  on  the  site  now  covered  by  their 
rich  and  splendid  city.  He  was  its  protector  during  the  years  of  its 
infancy,  and  in  the  period  of  its  greatest  danger.  Yet  the  traveller  who 
had  read  of  his  achievements,  admired  his  character,  and  visited  the 
theatre  of  his  brilliant  deeds,  discovers  nothing  indicating  the  place 
where  his  remains  are  deposited,  and  where  he  can  go  and  pay  a  tribute 
of  respect  to  the  memory  of  the  departed  and  gallant  hero."  J 

This  eulogy  of  Judge  Burnet's  is  fully  warranted  by  the  facts 
of  history.  There  is  preserved  in  the  War  Department  at 
Washington  a  portrait  of  Clarke,  which  gives  unmistakable  evi 
dence  of  a  character  of  rare  grasp  and  power.  No  one  can 
look  upon  that  remarkable  face  without  knowing  that  the  origi 
nal  was  a  man  of  unusual  force. 

Fourth.    Organization  and  settlement  of  the  Western  Reserve. 

Soon  after  the  close  of  the  Revolution,  our  Western  country 
was  divided  into  three  Territories :  the  Territory  of  the  Missis 
sippi,  the  Territory  South  of  the  Ohio,  and  the  Territory  North 
west  of  the  Ohio.  In  this  address,  I  shall  consider  only  the 
organization  and  settlement  of  the  latter. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  any  country  so  covered  with  con 
flicting  claims  of  title  as  the  Territory  of  the  Northwest.  Several 
States,  still  asserting  the  validity  of  their  royal  charters,  set  up 
claims  more  or  less  definite  to  portions  of  this  Territory.  First, 
by  royal  charter  of  1662,  confirming  a  Council  charter  of  1630, 
Connecticut  claimed  a  strip  of  land  bounded  on  the  east  by  the 
Narragansett  River,  north  by  Massachusetts,  south  by  Long 
Island  Sound,  and  extending  westward  between  the  parallels  of 
41  degrees  and  42  degrees  2  minutes  north  latitude,  to  the 
mythical  "  South  Sea."  Second,  New  York,  by  her  charter  of 
1614,  claimed  a  territory,  marked  by  definite  boundaries,  lying 
across  the  boundaries  of  the  Connecticut  charter.  Third,  by 
the  grant  to  William  Penn,  in  1664,  Pennsylvania  claimed  a  ter 
ritory  overlapping  part  of  the  territory  of  both  these  Colonies. 
Fourth,  the  charter  of  Massachusetts  also  conflicted  with  some 
of  the  claims  above  mentioned.  Fifth,  Virginia  claimed  the 
whole  of  the  Northwest  Territory  by  right  of  conquest,  and  in 
1778,  by  an  act  of  her  Legislature,  annexed  it  as  a  county. 
Sixth,  several  grants  of  special  tracts  had  been  made  by  the 
different  States  to  incorporated  companies.  And,  finally,  the 

1  Notes  on  the  Early  Settlement  of  the  Northwestern  Territory,  pp.  81,  82. 


84  THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY. 

whole  Territory  of  the  Northwest  was  claimed  by  the  Indians 
as  their  own. 

The  claims  of  New  York,  Massachusetts,  and  part  of  the 
claim  of  Pennsylvania,  had  been  settled  before  the  close  of  the 
war  by  royal  commissioners ;  the  others  were  still  unadjusted. 
It  became  evident  that  no  satisfactory  settlement  could  be  made, 
except  by  Congress.  That  body  urged  the  several  States  to 
make  a  cession  of  the  lands  they  claimed,  and  thus  enable  the 
general  government  to  open  the  Northwest  for  settlement. 

On  the  ist  of  March,  1784,  Thomas  Jefferson,  Samuel  Hardy, 
Arthur  Lee,  and  James  Monroe,  delegates  in  Congress,  executed 
a  deed  of  cession  in  the  name  of  Virginia,  by  which  they  trans 
ferred  to  the  United  States  the  title  of  Virginia  to  the  North 
west  Territory,  but  reserving  to  that  State  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  acres  of  land,  which  Virginia  had  promised  to 
George  Rogers  Clarke  and  the  officers  and  soldiers  who  with 
him  captured  the  British  posts  in  the  West.  Also,  another 
tract  of  land  between  the  Scioto  and  Little  Miami,  to  enable 
Virginia  to  pay  her  promised  bounties  to  her  officers  and 
soldiers  of  the  Revolutionary  army. 

On  the  27th  of  October,  1784,  a  treaty  was  made  at  Fort 
Stanwix,1  with  the  Six  Nations,  by  which  these  tribes  ceded  to 
the  United  States  their  vague  claims  to  the  lands  north  and 
west  of  the  Ohio.  On  the  3ist  of  January,  1785,  a  treaty  was 
made  at  Fort  Mclntosh,2  with  the  four  Western  tribes,  the 
Wyandottes,  the  Delawares,  the  Chippewas,  and  the  Ottavvas, 
by  which  all  their  lands  in  the  Northwest  Territory  were  ceded 
to  the  United  States,  except  that  portion  bounded  by  a  line 
drawn  from  the  mouth  of  the  Cuyahoga  up  that  river  to  the 
portage  between  the  Cuyahoga  and  Tuscarawas ;  thence  down 
that  river  to  the  mouth  of  the  Sandy;  thence  westwardly 
to  the  portage  of  the  Big  Miami,  which  runs  into  the  Ohio ; 
thence  along  the  portage  to  the  Great  Miami,  or  Maumee,  and 
down  the  southeast  side  of  that  river  to  its  mouth ;  thence  along 
the  shore  of  Lake  Erie  to  the  mouth  of  the  Cuyahoga.  The  ter 
ritory  thus  described  was  to  be  forever  the  exclusive  possession 
of  these  Indians. 

In  1788,  a  settlement  was  made  at  Marietta,  and  soon  after 
other  settlements  were  begun.  But  the  Indians  were  dissatis 
fied,  and,  by  the  intrigues  of  their  late  allies,  the  British,  a  sav- 
1  Now  Rome,  New  York.  2  Now  Beaver,  Pennsylvania. 


THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY.  85 

age  and  bloody  war  ensued,  which  delayed  for  several  years  the 
settlement  of  the  territory.  The  campaign  of  General  Harmar 
in  1790  was  only  a  partial  success.  In  the  following  year  a 
more  formidable  force  was  placed  under  the  command  of 
General  St.  Clair,  who  suffered  a  disastrous  and  overwhelming 
defeat  on  the  4th  of  November  of  that  year,  near  the  head 
waters  of  the  Wabash. 

It  was  evident  that  nothing  but  a  war  so  decisive  as  to  break 
the  power  of  the  Western  tribes  could  make  the  settlement 
of  Ohio  possible.  There  are  but  few  things  in  the  career  of 
George  Washington  that  so  strikingly  illustrate  his  sagacity  and 
prudence  as  the  policy  he  pursued  in  reference  to  this  subject. 
He  made  preparations  for  organizing  an  army  of  five  thousand 
men,  appointed  General  Wayne  to  the  command  of  a  special 
force,  and,  early  in  1792,  drafted  detailed  instructions  for  giv 
ing  it  special  discipline  to  fit  it  for  Indian  warfare.  During  that 
and  the  following  year,  he  exhausted  every  means  to  secure  the 
peace  of  the  West  by  treaties  with  the  tribes.  But  agents  of 
England  and  Spain  were  busy  in  intrigues  with  the  Indians  in 
hopes  of  recovering  a  portion  of  the  great  empire  they  had 
lost  by  the  treaty  of  1783.  So  far  were  the  efforts  of  England 
carried  that  a  British  force  was  sent  to  the  rapids  of  the  Mau- 
mee,  where  they  built  a  fort,  and  inspired  the  Indians  with  the 
hope  that  the  British  would  join  them  in  fighting  the  forces  of 
the  United  States.  All  efforts  to  make  a  peaceable  settlement 
on  any  other  basis  than  the  abandonment  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States  of  all  territory  north  of  the  Ohio  having  failed, 
General  Wayne  proceeded  with  that  wonderful  vigor  which  had 
made  him  famous  on  so  many  fields  of  the  Revolution,  and,  on 
the  2Oth  of  August,  1794,  defeated  the  Indians  and  their  allies 
on  the  banks  of  the  Maumee,  and  completely  broke  the  power 
of  their  confederation.  On  the  3d  of  August,  1795,  General 
Wayne  concluded,  at  Greenville,  a  treaty  of  lasting  peace  with 
these  tribes,  and  thus  opened  what  is  now  Ohio  to  settlement. 
In  this  treaty,  there  was  reserved  to  the  Indians  the  district 
west  of  the  Cuyahoga  described  in  the  treaty  of  Fort  Mcln- 
tosh  of  1785. 

Fifth.     Settlement  of  the  Western  Reserve. 

I  have  now  noticed  briefly  the  adjustment  of  the  several 
claims  to  the  Northwestern  Territory,  excepting  that  of  Con 
necticut.  It  has  already  been  seen  that  Connecticut  claimed  a 


85  THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY. 

strip  westward  from  the  Narragansett  River  to  the  Mississippi, 
between  the  parallels  of  41  degrees  and  42  degrees  2  minutes ; 
but  that  portion  of  her  claim  which  crossed  the  territory  of 
New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  had  been  extinguished  by  adjust 
ment.  Her  claim  to  the  territory  west  of  Pennsylvania  was  un 
settled  until  September  14,  1786,  when  she  ceded  it  all  to  the 
United  States,  except  that  portion  lying  between  the  parallels 
above  named,  and  a  line  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  west  of 
the  western  line  of  Pennsylvania  and  parallel  with  it,  and  the 
western  line  of  that  State.  This  tract  of  country  was  about 
the  size  of  the  present  State  of  Connecticut,  and  was  called 
"  New  Connecticut"  ;  also,  the  "  Western  Reserve." 

In  May,  1792,  the  Legislature  of  Connecticut  granted  to  those 
of  her  citizens  whose  property  had  been  burned  or  otherwise 
spoliated  by  the  British  during  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  half 
a  million  of  acres  from  the  west  end  of  the  Reserve,  which  were 
called  "  the  Fire  Lands." 

On  the  5th  of  September,  1795,  Connecticut  executed  a  deed 
to  John  Caldwell,  Jonathan  Brace,  and  John  Morgan,  trustees 
for  the  Connecticut  Land  Company,  for  three  million  acres  of 
the  Reserve,  lying  west  of  Pennsylvania,  for  $1,200,000,  or  at 
the  rate  of  forty  cents  per  acre.  The  State  gave  only  a  quit 
claim  deed,  transferring  only  such  title  as  she  possessed,  and 
leaving  all  the  remaining  Indian  titles  to  the  Reserve  to  be  ex 
tinguished  by  the  purchasers  themselves.  With  the  exception 
of  a  few  hundred  acres  previously  sold,  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  Salt  Spring  Tract,  on  the  Mahoning,  all  titles  to  lands 
east  of  the  Fire  Lands  rest  on  this  quitclaim  deed  of  Connect 
icut  to  the  three  trustees,  who  were  all  living  as  late  as  1836, 
and  joined  in  making  deeds  to  the  lands  on  the  Reserve. 

On  the  same  day  that  the  trust  deed  was  made,  articles  of 
association  were  signed  by  the  proprietors,  providing  for  the 
government  of  the  company.  The  management  of  its  affairs 
was  intrusted  to  seven  directors.  They  determined  to  extin 
guish  the  Indian  title,  and  survey  their  land  into  townships  five 
miles  square.  Moses  Cleaveland,  one  of  the  Directors,  was  made 
General  Agent;  Augustus  Porter,  Principal  Surveyor;  and  Seth 
Pease,  Astronomer  and  Surveyor.  To  these  were  added  four 
assistant  surveyors,  a  commissary,  a  physician,  and  thirty-seven 
other  employees.  This  party  assembled  at  Schenectady,  New 
York,  in  the  spring  of  1796,  and  prepared  for  their  expedition. 


THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY.  87 

It  is  interesting  to  follow  them  on  their  way  to  the  Reserve. 
They  ascended  the  Mohawk  River  in  batteaux,  passing  through 
Little  Falls,  and  from  the  present  city  of  Rome  took  their  boats 
and  stores  across  into  Wood  Creek.  Passing  down  the  stream, 
they  crossed  Oneida  Lake ;  thence  down  the  Oswego  to  Lake 
Ontario,  coasting  along  the  lake  to  Niagara.  After  encounter 
ing  innumerable  hardships,  the  party  reached  Buffalo  on  the  i/th 
of  June,  where  they  met  Red  Jacket  and  the  principal  chiefs 
of  the  Six  Nations,  and  on  the  23d  of  that  month  completed 
a  contract  with  those  chiefs  by  which  they  purchased  all  the 
rights  of  the  Indians  to  the  lands  on  the  Reserve,  for  five  hun- 

o 

dred  pounds,  New  York  currency,  to  be  paid  in  goods,  two 
beef  cattle,  and  one  hundred  gallons  of  whiskey,  besides  gifts 
and  provisions.  Setting  out  from  Buffalo  on  the  2;th  of  June, 
they  coasted  along  the  shore  of  the  lake,  some  of  the  party  in 
boats  and  others  marching  along  the  banks. 

In  the  journal  of  Seth  Pease,  published  in  Whittlesey's  His 
tory  of  Cleveland,  I  find  the  following :  — 

"  Monday,  July  4th,  1796.  We  that  came  by  land  arrived  at  the  con 
fines  of  New  Connecticut  and  gave  three  cheers  precisely  at  five  o'clock, 
p.  M.  We  then  proceeded  to  Conneaut,  at  five  hours  thirty  minutes  ;  our 
boats  got  on  an  hour  after ;  we  pitched  our  tents  on  the  east  side."  l 

In  the  journal  of  General  Cleaveland  is  the  following  entry:  — 

"  On  this  creek  (Conneaught)  in  New  Connecticut  Land,  July  4th, 
1796,  under  General  Moses  Cleaveland,  the  surveyors,  and  men  sent  by 
the  Connecticut  Land  Company  to  survey  and  settle  the  Connecticut  Re 
serve,  and  were  the  first  English  people  who  took  possession  of  it 

And,  after  many  difficulties,  perplexities,  and  hardships  were  surmounted, 
and  we  were  on  the  good  and  promised  land,  felt  that  a  just  tribute  of 
respect  to  the  day  ought  to  be  paid.  There  were  in  all,  including  women 
and  children,  fifty  in  number.  The  men,  under  Captain  Tinker,  ranged 
themselves  on  the  beach,  and  fired  a  Federal  salute  of  fifteen  rounds,  and 
then  the  sixteenth  in  honor  of  New  Connecticut.  We  gave  three  cheers, 
and  christened  the  place  Port  Independence.  Drank  several  toasts. 
.  .  .  .  Closed  with  three  cheers.  Drank  several  pails  of  grog,  supped, 
and  retired  in  good  order."  2 

Three  days  aftenvard  General  Cleaveland  held  a  council  with 
Paqua,  chief  of  the  Massasagas,  whose  village  was  at  Conneaut 
Creek.  The  friendship  of  these  Indians  was  purchased  with  a 
few  trinkets  and  twenty-five  dollars'  worth  of  whiskey.  A  cabin 

1  Early  History  of  Cleveland,  p.  180.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  181,  182. 


88  THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY. 

was  erected  on  the  bank  of  Conneaut  Creek,  and,  in  honor  of 
the  commissary  of  the  expedition,  was  called  "  Stow  Castle." 
At  this  time  the  white  inhabitants  west  of  the  Genesee  River, 
and  along  the  coasts  of  the  Lakes,  were  the  garrison  at  Niagara, 
two  families  at  Lewistown,  one  at  Buffalo,  one  at  Cleveland, 
and  one  at  Sandusky.  There  were  no  other  families  east  of 
Detroit,  and,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  adventurers  at  the 
Salt  Springs  of  the  Mahoning,  the  interior  of  New  Connecticut 
was  an  unbroken  wilderness. 

The  work  of  surveying  was  commenced  at  once.  One  party 
went  southward  on  the  Pennsylvania  line  to  find  the  forty- 
first  parallel,  and  began  the  survey;  another,  under  General 
Cleaveland,  coasted  along  the  lake  to  the  mouth  of  the  Cuya- 
hoga,  which  they  reached  on  the  22d  of  July,  and  there  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  chief  city  of  the  Reserve.  A  large  portion  of 
the  survey  was  made  during  that  season,  and  the  work  was  com 
pleted  in  the  following  year. 

By  the  close  of  the  year  1800  there  were  thirty-two  settle 
ments  on  the  Reserve,  though  as  yet  no  organization  of  gov 
ernment  had  been  established.  But  the  pioneers  were  a  people 
who  had  been  trained  in  the  principles  and  practices  of  civil 
order;  and  these  were  transplanted  to  their  new  home.  In 
New  Connecticut  there  was  but  little  of  that  lawlessness  which 
so  often  characterizes  the  people  of  a  new  country.  In  many 
instances,  a  township  organization  was  completed,  and  their 
minister  chosen,  before  the  pioneers  left  home.  Thus  they 
planted  the  institutions  and  opinions  of  Old  Connecticut  in  their 
new  wilderness  homes. 

There  are  townships  on  this  Western  Reserve  which  are  more 
thoroughly  New  England  in  character  and  spirit  than  most  of 
the  towns  of  the  New  England  of  to-day.  Cut  off  as  they  were 
from  the  metropolitan  life  that  had  gradually  been  moulding  and 
changing  the  spirit  of  New  England,  they  preserved  here  in  the 
wilderness  the  characteristics  of  New  England  as  it  was  when 
they  left  it  at  the  beginning  of  the  century.  This  has  given  to 
the  people  of  the  Western  Reserve  those  strongly  marked  qual 
ities  which  have  always  distinguished  them. 

For  a  long  time  it  was  difficult  to  ascertain  the  political  and 
legal  status  of  the  settlers  on  the  Reserve.  The  State  of  Con 
necticut  did  not  assume  jurisdiction  over  its  people,  because 
that  State  had  parted  with  her  claim  to  the  soil.  By  a  procla- 


THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY.  89 

mation  of  Governor  St.  Clair,  in  1788,  Washington  County  had 
been  organized,  its  limits  extending  westward  to  the  Scioto,  and 
northward  to  the  mouth  of  the  Cuyahoga,  with  Marietta  as  the 
county  seat.  These  limits  included  a  portion  of  the  Western 
Reserve.  But  the  Connecticut  settlers  did  not  consider  this  a 
practical  government,  and  most  of  them  doubted  its  legality. 

By  the  end  of  the  century,  seven  counties,  Washington,  Ham 
ilton,  Ross,  Wayne,  Adams,  Jefferson,  and  Knox,  had  been 
created,  but  none  of  them  were  of  any  practical  service  to  the 
settlers  on  the  Reserve.  No  magistrate  had  been  appointed  for 
that  portion  of  the  country,  no  civil  process  was  established, 
and  no  mode  existed  of  making  legal  conveyances.  But  in  the 
year  1800  the  State  of  Connecticut,  by  an  act  of  her  Legislature, 
transferred  to  the  national  government  all  her  claim  to  civil 
jurisdiction.  Congress  assumed  the  political  control,  and  the 
President  conveyed  by  patent  the  fee  of  the  soil  to  the  govern 
ment  of  the  State,  for  the  use  of  the  grantees  and  the  parties 
claiming  under  them.  Thereupon,  in  pursuance  of  this  author 
ity,  on  the  22d  of  September,  1800,  Governor  St.  Clair  issued  a 
proclamation  establishing  the  county  of  Trumbull,  to  include 
within  its  boundaries  the  Fire  Lands  and  adjacent  islands, 
and  ordered  an  election  to  be  held  at  Warren,  its  county  seat, 
on  the  second  Tuesday  of  October.  At  that  election  forty-two 
votes  were  cast,  of  which  General  Edward  Payne  received  thirty- 
eight,  and  was  thus  elected  a  member  of  the  Territorial  Legisla 
ture.  All  the  early  deeds  on  the  Reserve  are  preserved  in  the 
records  of  Trumbull  County. 

A  treaty  was  held  at  Fort  Industry  on  the  4th  of  July,  1805, 
between  the  commissioners  of  the  Connecticut  Land  Company 
and  the  Indians,  by  which  all  the  lands  in  the  Reserve  west  of 
the  Cuyahoga  belonging  to  the  Indians  were  ceded  to  the 
Connecticut  Company. 

Geauga  was  the  second  county  of  the  Reserve.  It  was  cre 
ated  by  an  act  of  the  Legislature,  December  31,  1805  ;  and  by 
a  subsequent  act  its  boundaries  were  made  to  include  the  pres 
ent  territory  of  Cuyahoga  County  as  far  west  as  the  Fourteenth 
Range.  Portage  County  was  established  on  the  loth  of  Feb 
ruary,  1807,  and  on  the  i6th  of  June,  1810,  the  act  establishing 
Cuyahoga  County  went  into  operation.  By  that  act  all  of  Geauga 
west  of  the  Ninth  Range  was  made  a  part  of  Cuyahoga  County. 
Ashtabula  County  was  established  on  the  22d  of  January,  1811. 


90-  THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY. 

A  considerable  number  of  Indians  remained  on  the  Western 
Reserve  until  the  breaking  out  of  the  war  of  1812.  Most  of  the 
Canadian  tribes  took  up  arms  against  the  United  States  in  that 
struggle,  and  a  portion  of  the  Indians  of  the  Western  Reserve 
joined  their  Canadian  brethren.  At  the  close  of  that  war  occa 
sional  bands  of  these  Indians  returned  to  their  old  haunts  on  the 
Cuyahoga  and  the  Mahoning;  but  the  inhabitants  of  the  Re 
serve  soon  made  them  understand  that  they  were  unwelcome 
visitors,  after  the  part  they  had  taken  against  them.  Thus 
the  war  of  1812  substantially  cleared  the  Reserve  of  its  Indian 
inhabitants. 

In  this  brief  survey,  I  have  attempted  to  indicate  the  general 
character  of  the  leading  events  connected  with  the  discovery 
and  settlement  of  our  country.  I  cannot,  on  this  occasion, 
further  pursue  the  history  of  the  settlement  and  building  up  of 
the  counties  and  townships  of  the  Western  Reserve.  I  have 
already  noticed  the  peculiar  character  of  the  people  who  con 
verted  this  wilderness  into  the  land  of  happy  homes  which  we 
now  behold  on  every  hand.  But  I  desire  to  call  the  attention 
of  the  young  men  and  women  who  hear  me  to  the  duty  they 
owe  to  themselves  and  their  ancestors,  to  study  carefully  and 
reverently  the  history  of  the  great  work  which  has  been  ac 
complished  in  this  New  Connecticut. 

The  pioneers  who  first  broke  ground  here  accomplished  a 
work  unlike  that  which  will  fall  to  the  lot  of  any  succeeding 
generation.  The  hardships  they  endured,  the  obstacles  they 
encountered,  the  life  they  led,  the  peculiar  qualities  they  needed 
in  their  undertakings,  and  the  traits  of  character  developed  by 
their  works,  stand  alone  in  our  history.  The  generation  that 
knew  these  first  pioneers  is  fast  passing  away.  But  there  are 
sitting  in  this  audience  to-day  a  few  men  and  women  whose 
memories  date  back  to  the  early  settlement.  Here  sits  a  gen 
tleman  near  me  who  is  older  than  the  Western  Reserve.  He 
remembers  a  time  when  the  axe  of  the  Connecticut  pioneer 
had  never  awakened  the  echoes  of  the  wilderness  here.  How 
strange  and  wonderful  a  transformation  has  taken  place  since 
he  was  a  child  !  It  is  our  sacred  duty  to  rescue  from  oblivion 
the  stirring  recollections  of  such  men,  and  to  preserve  them  as 
memorials  of  the  past,  as  lessons  for  our  own  inspiration,  and 
for  the  instruction  of  those  who  shall  come  after  us. 


THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY.  91 

The  materials  for  a  history  of  this  Reserve  are  rich  and  abun 
dant.  Its  pioneers  were  not  ignorant  and  thoughtless  adven 
turers,  but  men  of  established  character,  whose  opinions  on 
civil  and  religious  liberty  had  grown  with  their  growth,  and 
become  the  settled  convictions  of  their  maturer  years.  Both 
here  and  in  Connecticut,  the  family  records,  journals,  and  letters 
which  are  preserved  in  hundreds  of  families,  if  brought  out  and 
arranged  in  order,  would  throw  a  flood  of  light  on  every  page 
of  our  history.  Even  the  brief  notice  which  informed  the  citi 
zens  of  this  county  that  a  meeting  was  to  be  held  here  to-day 
to  organize  a  pioneer  society,  has  called  this  great  audience 
together;  and  they  have  brought  with  them  many  rich  histori 
cal  memorials.  They  have  brought  old  Colonial  commissions 
given  to  early  Connecticut  soldiers  of  the  Revolution,  who 
became  pioneers  of  the  Reserve,  and  whose  children  are  here 
to-day.  They  have  brought  church  and  other  records  which 
date  back  to  the  beginning  of  these  settlements.  They  have 
shown  us  implements  of  industry  which  the  pioneers  brought  in 
with  them,  many  of  which  have  been  superseded  by  the  supe 
rior  mechanical  contrivances  of  our  time.  Some  of  these  im 
plements  are  symbols  of  the  spirit  and  character  of  the  pioneers 
of  the  Reserve.  Here  is  a  broad-axe  brought  from  Connecticut 
by  John  Ford,  father  of  the  late  Governor  Ford ;  and  we  are 
told  that  the  first  work  done  with  this  axe  by  that  sturdy 
old  pioneer,  after  he  had  finished  a  few  cabins  for  the  families 
that  came  with  him,  was  to  hew  out  the  timbers  for  an  acad 
emy, —  the  Burton  Academy,  —  to  which  so  many  of  our  older 
men  owe  the  foundation  of  their  education,  and  from  which 
sprang  Western  Reserve  College. 

These  pioneers  knew  well  that  the  three  great  forces  which 
constitute  the  strength  and  glory  of  a  free  government  are  the 
family,  the  school,  and  the  church.  These  three  they  planted 
here,  and  they  nourished  and  cherished  them  with  an  energy 
and  devotion  scarcely  equalled  in  any  other  quarter  of  the 
world.  On  this  height  were  planted  in  the  wilderness  the  sym 
bols  of  this  trinity  of  powers ;  and  here  let  us  hope  may  be 
maintained  forever  the  ancient  faith  of  our  fathers  in  the 
sanctity  of  the  home,  the  intelligence  of  the  school,  and  the 
faithfulness  of  the  church.  Where  these  three  combine  in 
prosperous  union,  the  safety  and  prosperity  of  the  nation  are 
assured.  The  glory  of  our  country  can  never  be  dimmed  while 
these  three  lights  are  kept  shining  with  an  undimmed  lustre. 


CHIEF  JUSTICE  CHASE  AND   PROFESSOR 
AGASSIZ. 

REMARKS   MADE  IN   THE   BOARD   OF  REGENTS   OF  THE 
SMITHSONIAN   INSTITUTION, 

DECEMBER  19,  1873. 


AT  a  meeting  of  the  Regents  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution  held  at 
the  above  date,  the  Secretary,  Professor  Joseph  Henry,  announced  the 
deaths,  since  the  last  meeting  of  the  Board,  of  two  of  the  most  prominent 
members  of  the  Board,  Chief  Justice  Chase  and  Professor  Agassiz.  Mr. 
Hannibal  Hamlin  moved  the  appointment  of  a  committee  to  prepare 
resolutions  expressive  of  the  sentiments  of  the  Board  in  regard  to  the 
death  of  these  Regents.  Mr.  Garfield  seconded  the  motion  in  the  fol 
lowing  remarks. 


MR.  CHANCELLOR,— I  rise  to  second  the  motion  for  the 
appointment  of  a  committee  to  draft  resolutions  in  refer 
ence  to  the  death  of  our  distinguished  brother  Regents,  Chief 
Justice  Chase  and  Professor  Agassiz. 

Never  before  in  a  single  year  has  the  Board  of  Regents  suf 
fered  so  severe  a  loss.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find,  in  any 
organization,  two  men  more  eminent,  and  representing  a  wider 
range  of  culture,  than  the  two  Regents  who  have  fallen  since  the 
last  meeting  of  this  Board.  This  is  not  the  occasion  to  speak 
at  length  on  the  subject ;  but  as  my  term  of  service  will  expire 
before  the  next  meeting,  I  ask  the  indulgence  of  the  Board  while 
I  refer  briefly  to  some  of  the  marked  characteristics  of  our  late 
distinguished  associates. 

Few  Americans  have  filled  so  many  high  places  of  trust  and 
honor  as  Salmon  P.  Chase ;  and  few  have  brought  to  the  dis 
charge  of  the  duties  of  their  high  stations  such  masterly  ability 
and  such  rare  and  varied  accomplishments.  His  career  adds 


CHASE  AND  AGASSIZ.  93 

another  to  the  many  illustrations  of  the  truth,  that  he  who  loses 
his  life  for  the  truth's  sake  shall  find  it.  In  his  early  manhood, 
following  his  own  convictions  of  duty,  he  committed  himself 
without  reserve  to  a  cause  which  seemed,  at  the  time,  to  shut 
him  out  from  all  hope  of  public  preferment.  He  stood  by  his 
convictions,  and  lived,  not  only  to  see  his  doctrines  prevail,  but 
to  be  one  of  the  honored  leaders  in  the  cause  he  had  espoused. 

Whether  at  the  bar  in  the  practice  of  his  profession,  in  the 
executive  chair  of  his  own  State,  in  the  national  Senate,  as  the 
great  finance  minister  of  the  republic  in  the  stormy  days  of 
war,  or  as  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States,  there  ran  through 
his  whole  life  a  depth  of  conviction,  a  clearness  of  comprehen 
sion,  and  a  force  of  utterance,  that  made  his  power  felt,  and 
marked  him  as  a  man  who  filled  and  overfilled,  honored  and 
adorned,  the  great  stations  to  which  he  was  called.  If  in  the 
course  of  his  high  career  he  felt  the  promptings  of  that  ambi 
tion  which  has  been  called  "  the  last  infirmity  of  noble  mind," 
it  must  be  acknowledged  that  he  aspired  to  no  place  beyond  his 
capacity  to  honor. 

Throughout  his  long  and  honored  life  the  cares  and  demands 
of  public  place  did  not  diminish  his  ardent  love  for  the  pursuits 
of  science  and  the  keen  enjoyment  of  literature  and  art.  The 
great  masters  of  song  were  his  daily  companions.  I  was  his 
guest  for  many  weeks,  during  the  stormy  and  troublous  winter 
of  1862—63,  when  to  the  deep  anxieties  of  the  war  were  added  the 
gravest  financial  problems  that  have  ever  confronted  an  Ameri 
can  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  many  a  time,  at  the  close  of 
a  weary  day  of  anxious  care  and  exhausting  labor,  I  have  seen 
him  lay  aside  the  heavy  load,  and,  in  the  quiet  of  his  study, 
read  aloud,  or  repeat  from  memory,  the  rich  verse  of  Tennyson, 
or  of  some  other  great  master  of  song.  It  was  this  life  of  art 
and  sentiment,  within  the  stormy  life  of  public  duty,  that  fed 
and  refreshed  his  spirit,  and  kept  his  heart  young,  while  his 
outer  life  grew  venerable  with  years  and  honors. 

As  the  Chancellor  of  this  Institution,  we  saw  in  happy  and 
harmonious  action  his  ample  knowledge  of  our  institutions,  his 
wide  experience  of  finance,  his  reverential  love  for  science  and 
art,  and  his  unshaken  faith  in  the  future  of  his  country  as  the 
grand  theatre  for  the  highest  development  of  all  that  is  best  and 
greatest  in  human  nature.  No  contribution  to  science  offered 
to  this  Board  escaped  his  attention.  Nothing  that  was  high  or 


94  CHASE  AND  AGASSIZ. 

worthy  in  human  pursuits  failed  to  elicit  his  appreciative  and 
powerful  support. 

In  Professor  Agassiz  we  have  lost  a  man  of  kindred  powers, 
whose  life  was  spent  in  a  different,  though  hardly  less  conspicu 
ous  field  of  action.  Few  lives  were  ever  so  sincerely  and  en 
tirely  devoted  to  the  highest  and  best  aims  of  science.  I  was 
led  to  appreciate  this  by  a  remark  which  Professor  Agassiz 
made  to  me  several  years  ago,  which  is,  I  believe,  the  key  to 
his  own  career,  and  deserves  to  be  remembered  by  all  who 
would  follow  in  his  footsteps.  His  remark  was,  that  he  had 
made  it  the  rule  of  his  life  to  abandon  any  intellectual  pursuit 
the  moment  it  became  commercially  valuable. 

He  knew  that  others  would  utilize  what  he  discovered,  —  that 
when  he  brought  down  the  great  truths  of  science  to  the  level 
of  commercial  values,  a  thousand  hands  would  be  ready  to  take 
them  and  make  them  valuable  in  the  markets  of  the  world. 
Since  then  I  have  thought  of  him  as  one  of  that  small  but  elect 
company  of  men  who  dwell  on  the  upper  heights,  above  the 
plane  of  commercial  values,  and  who  love  and  seek  truth  for  its 
own  sake.  Such  men  are  indeed  the  prophets,  the  priests,  the 
interpreters  of  nature.  Few  of  their  number  have  learned 
more,  at  first  hand,  than  Professor  Agassiz ;  and  few,  if  any, 
have  submitted  their  theories  to  severer  tests. 

It  was  a  great  risk  for  the  astronomer  Leverrier  to  announce 
that  the  perturbations  of  the  planet  Uranus  could  only  be  ac 
counted  for  by  a  planet  as  yet  unknown,  and  to  predict  its  size 
and  place  in  the  solar  system,  trusting  to  the  telescope  to  con 
firm  or  explode  his  theory.  But  perhaps  Professor  Agassiz  took 
even  a  greater  risk  than  this.  Who  does  not  remember  the  letter 
that  he  addressed  to  Professor  Peirce  of  the  Coast  Survey,  just 
before  he  set  out  on  the  Hassler  expedition,  predicting  in  detail 
what  evidences  of  glacial  action  he  expected  to  find  on  the  con 
tinent  of  South  America,  and  what  species  of  marine  animals  he 
expected  to  discover  in  the  deep-sea  soundings  along  that  coast? 
He  risked  his  own  reputation  as  a  scientific  man  on  the  predic 
tions  then  committed  to  writing.  What  member  of  this  Board 
will  forget  the  lecture  he  delivered  here  after  his  return,  detail 
ing  the  discoveries  he  had  made,  and  showing  how  completely 
his  predictions  had  been  verified? 

While  he  was  the  prince  of  scholars,  and  a  recognized  teacher 
of  mankind,  yet  Agassiz  always  preserved  that  childlike  spirit 


CHASE  AND  AGASSIZ.  95 

which  made  him  the  most  amiable  of  men.  He  studied  nature 
with  a  reverence  born  of  his  undoubting  faith.  He  believed 
that  the  universe  was  a  cosmos,  not  a  chaos ;  and  that  through 
out  all  its  vast  domains  there  are  indubitable  evidences  of  cre 
ative  power  and  supreme  wisdom. 

We  have  special  cause  for  regret  that  his  early  death  has  de 
prived  this  community  and  the  world  of  a  series  of  lectures 
which  were  to  have  been  delivered  here  this  winter,  on  subjects 
of  the  deepest  interest  to  science.  His  death  will  be  deplored 
in  whatever  quarter  of  the  globe  genius  is  admired  and  sci 
ence  cherished.  He  has  left  behind  him  as  a  legacy  to  man 
kind  a  name  and  a  fame  which  will  abide  as  an  everlasting 
possession. 


REVENUES   AND   EXPENDITURES. 

SPEECH   DELIVERED   IN   THE   HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 

MARCH  5,  1874. 


ON  the  1 6th  of  February,  1874,  Mr.  Garfield,  from  the  Committee 
on  Appropriations,  introduced  the  bill  making  appropriations  for  the 
legislative,  executive,  and  judicial  expenses  of  the  government  for  the 
fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1875,  and  for  other  purposes.  March  5, 
the  House  resolved  itself  into  Committee  of  the  Whole  for  the  consid 
eration  of  said  bill,  when  he  made  the  following  speech. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,  — I  regret  that  I  have  to  ask  the  atten 
tion  of  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  at  so  late  an  hour 
of  the  day;   but  in  the  present  condition  of  the  public  business 
I  am  unwilling  longer  to  delay  the  consideration  of  the  appro 
priation  bills. 

The  bill  now  pending  before  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  is 
the  best  gauge  by  which  to  measure  the  magnitude  and  cost 
of  the  national  government.  Its  provisions  extend  to  every 
leading  function  of  the  government  in  the  three  great  depart 
ments, —  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial,  —  and  include  the 
civil  functions  of  the  military  and  naval  establishments.  It  ap 
propriates  for  all  the  salaries  and  contingent  expenses  of  all  the 
officers  and  employees  of  the  civil  service.  If  its  provisions 
could  be  thrown  upon  canvas,  they  would  form  an  outline  map 
exhibiting  the  character  and  the  magnitude  of  the  government 
of  the  United  States.  This  bill  is  the  proper  standpoint  from 
which  to  study  the  public  expenditures,  to  examine  the  relation 
of  expenditures  to  taxation,  and  of  both  to  the  prosperity  and 
well-being  of  the  nation.  What  the  House  may  do  with  this 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  97 

bill  will  be  the  test  of  what  they  will  do  with  the  appro 
priation  bills  generally.  Their  action  upon  it  will  be  the  base 
line  from  which  the  scale  of  our  expenditures  for  the  coming 
fiscal  year  is  to  be  measured ;  and  it  is  for  that  reason,  Mr. 
Chairman,  that  I  ask  the  attention  of  the  House,  not  only  to 
the  bill,  but  to  the  larger  question  of  our  expenditures  and 
our  revenues. 

A  government  is  an  artificial  giant,  and  the  power  that  moves 
it  is  money, —  money  raised  by  taxation  and  distributed  to  the 
various  parts  of  the  body  politic  according  to  the  discretion  of 
the  legislative  power.  We  have  frequently  heard  it  remarked 
since  the  session  began,  that  we  should  make  our  expendi 
tures  come  within  our  revenues,  —  that  we  should  "cut  our 
garment  according  to  our  cloth."  This  theory  may  be  cor 
rect  when  applied  to  private  affairs,  but  it  is  not  applicable 
to  the  wants  of  nations.  Our  national  expenditures  should  be 
measured  by  the  real  necessities  and  the  proper  needs  of  the 
government.  We  should  cut  our  garment  so  as  to  fit  the  per 
son  to  be  clothed.  If  he  be  a  giant,  we  must  provide  cloth 
sufficient  for  a  fitting  garment. 

The  Committee  on  Appropriations  are  seeking  earnestly  to 
reduce  the  expenditures  of  the  government;  but  they  reject 
the  doctrine  that  they  should  at  all  hazards  reduce  the  ex 
penditures  to  the  level  of  the  revenues,  however  small  those 
revenues  may  be.  They  have  attempted  rather  to  ascertain 
what  are  the  real  and  vital  necessities  of  the  government,  —  to 
find  what  amount  of  money  will  suffice  to  meet  all  its  honest 
obligations,  to  carry  on  all  its  necessary  and  essential  functions, 
and  to  keep  alive  those  public  enterprises  which  the  country 
desires  its  government  to  undertake  and  accomplish.  When 
the  amount  of  expenses  necessary  to  meet  these  objects  is 
ascertained,  that  amount  should  be  appropriated ;  and  ways 
and  means  for  procuring  that  amount  should  be  provided. 

There  are  some  advantages  in  the  British  system  of  man 
aging  their  finances.  In  the  annual  budget  reported  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  expenditures  and  taxation  are  harnessed 
together.  If  appropriations  are  increased,  taxes  are  corre 
spondingly  increased ;  if  appropriations  are  reduced,  a  reduc 
tion  of  taxes  accompanies  the  reduction.  On  some  accounts,  it 
is  unfortunate  that  our  work  of  appropriations  is  not  connected 
directly  with  the  work  of  taxation.  If  this  were  so,  the  ne- 

VOL.    II.  7 


98  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

cessity  of  taxation  would  be  a  constant  check  upon  extrav 
agance,  and  the  practice  of  economy  would  promise,  as  its 
immediate  result,  the  pleasure  of  reducing  taxation. 

Revenues  and  expenditures  may  be  considered  from  two 
points  of  view;  in  relation  to  the  people  and  their  industries, 
and  in  relation  to  the  government  and  the  effective  working 
of  its  machinery.  So  far  as  the  people  are  concerned,  they 
willingly  bear  the  burdens  of  taxation,  when  they  see  that 
their  contributions  are  honestly  and  wisely  expended  to  main 
tain  the  government  of  their  choice,  and  to  accomplish  those 
objects  which  they  consider  necessary  for  the  general  welfare. 
So  far  as  the  government  is  concerned,  the  soundness  of  its 
financial  affairs  depends  upon  the  annual  surplus  of  its  rev 
enues  over  expenditures.  A  steady  and  constant  revenue 
drawn  from  sources  that  represent  the  prosperity  of  the 
nation,  —  a  revenue  that  grows  with  the  growth  of  national 
wealth,  and  is  so  adjusted  to  the  expenditures  that  a  constant 
and  considerable  surplus  is  annually  left  in  the  Treasury,  —  a 
surplus  that  keeps  the  Treasury  strong,  that  holds  it  above  the 
fear  of  sudden  panic,  that  makes  it  impregnable  against  all 
private  combinations,  that  makes  it  a  terror  to  all  stockjobbing 
and  gold-gambling,  —  this  is  financial  health.  This  is  the  situ 
ation  that  wise  statesmanship  should  endeavor  to  support  and 
maintain.  Of  course  in  this  discussion  I  leave  out  the  collateral 
though  important  subject  of  banking  and  currency.  The  sur 
plus,  then,  is  the  key  to  our  financial  situation.  Every  act  of 
legislation  should  be  studied  in  view  of  its  effects  upon  the 
surplus,  upon  which  two  sets  of  forces  are  constantly  acting. 
It  is  increased  by  the  growth  of  the  revenue  and  by  the 
decrease  of  expenditure.  It  is  decreased  by  the  repeal  or 
reduction  of  taxation,  and  by  the  increase  of  expenditures. 
When  both  forces  conspire  against  it,  when  taxes  are  dimin 
ished  and  expenditures  are  increased,  the  surplus  disappears. 
With  the  disappearance  of  the  surplus  comes  disaster,  —  disaster 
to  the  Treasury,  disaster  to  the  public  credit,  disaster  to  all  the 
public  interests.  In  times  of  peace,  when  no  sudden  emergency 
has  made  a  great  and  imperious  demand  upon  the  Treasury,  a 
deficit  cannot  occur  except  as  the  result  of  unwise  legislation 
or  reckless  and  unwarranted  administration.  That  legislation 
may  consist  in  too  great  an  increase  of  appropriations,  or  in  too 
great  a  reduction  of  taxation,  or  in  both  combined. 


REVENUES  AND   EXPENDITURES.  99 

Twice  in  the  history  of  this  nation  a  deficit  has  occurred  in 
time  of  peace.  In  both  instances  it  has  occurred  because  Con 
gress  went  too  far  in  the  reduction  of  taxation,  —  so  far  as  to 
cripple  the  revenues  and  deplete  the  Treasury.  It  may  be 
worth  our  while  to  study  those  periods  of  our  history  in  which 
deficits  have  thus  occurred.  I  do  not  speak  of  periods  of  war, 
for  then  the  surplus  is  always  maintained  by  the  aid  of  loans ; 
but  I  speak  of  deficits  occurring  in  times  of  peace. 

From  the  close  of  the  last  war  with  England,  in  1815,  our 
revenues  maintained  a  healthy  and  steady  growth,  interrupted 
only  by  years  of  financial  crisis.  A  constant  surplus  was  main 
tained,  sufficient  to  keep  the  Treasury  steady  and  diminish  the 
public  debt,  and  finally  complete  its  payment.  But  in  1833  the 
great  financial  discussion,  which  at  one  time  threatened  to  dis 
solve  the  Union,  was  ended  by  the  passage  of  the  Compromise 
Tariff,  —  a  law  that  provided  for  the  scaling  down  of  the  rates 
of  taxation  on  imports  in  each  alternate  year  until  1842,  when 
all  should  be  reduced  to  the  uniform  rate  of  twenty  per  cent 
ad  valorem.  By  this  measure  the  revenues  were  steadily  de 
creased,  and  in  1840  the  Treasury  was  empty.  During  the  nine 
preceding  years  the  receipts  had  averaged  $32,000,000  a  year; 
but  in  1840  they  had  fallen  to  $19,500,000,  and  in  1841  to  less 
than  $17,000,000.  True,  the  expenditures  had  grown  with  the 
growth  of  the  country;  but  no  large  or  sudden  expenditure 
appeared  in  any  of  those  years.  The  deficit  appeared,  and  it 
was  unquestionably  due  to  too  great  a  reduction  of  taxation. 
This  deficit  brought  political  and  financial  disaster.  To  meet 
it,  a  special  session  of  Congress  was  convened  in  June,  1841, 
and  President  Tyler  sent  in  a  message,  in  which  he  declared  that 
by  March  4,  1842,  there  would  be  a  deficit  of  $11,406,132.98, 
and  a  further  deficit  by  September,  1842,  of  $4,845,000.  In  his 
message  of  December  7,  1841,  he  reported  a  still  further  deficit, 
and  declared  that  these  accumulated  deficits  were  the  results  of 
the  too  great  reduction  of  taxation  by  the  legislation  of  1833. 
These  accumulated  deficits  amounted  to  more  than  all  the 
receipts  for  that  year.  They  were  to  that  time  what  a  deficit 
of  $300,000,000  would  be  to  us  to-day. 

I  understood  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  *  to  declare 
that  Congress  had  never  increased  taxation  in  time  of  peace. 
Our  history  does  not  bear  him  out  in  this  assertion.  The  Con- 

1  Mr.  Dawes. 


ioo  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

gress  of  1841-42  was  called  upon  to  repair  the  wasted  reve 
nues  by  an  increase  of  taxation.  The  debates  of  that  body 
show  that  the  bill  which  they  passed  was  treated  wholly  as  a 
necessity  of  the  revenue.  The  bill  itself  was  entitled  "  An  Act 
to  provide  Revenue  for  the  Government."  It  became  a  law  in 
1842,  and  under  its  influence  the  revenues  revived.  In  1843 
the  surplus  reappeared,  and  again  the  revenues  continued  to 
grow  with  the  growth  of  the  country. 

Excepting  the  period  of  the  Mexican  war,  which,  like  all 
other  modern  wars,  was  carried  on  by  the  aid  of  loans,  the  sur 
plus  continued  down  to  and  including  the  first  year  of  Buchan 
an's  administration.  In  the  four  years  of  Pierce's  administration, 
the  revenues  had  exceeded  $70,000,000  a  year;  but  the  first 
year  of  Buchanan's  term,  an  act  was  passed  so  largely  reducing 
the  duties  on  imports  that  the  revenues  dropped  to  $46,500,000 
in  1858,  and  a  deficit  appeared  which  continued  and  accumu 
lated  until  the  coming  in  of  Lincoln's  administration  in  1861. 

Let  us  notice  the  growth  of  that  deficit.  On  July  I,  1857, 
the  public  debt,  less  cash  in  the  Treasury,  was  $11,350,270.63  ; 
on  July  i,  1860,  the  account  stood,  total  debt,  less  cash  in  the 
Treasury,  $61,140,497,  showing  a  deficit  of  $50,000,000  in  the 
space  of  three  years.  When  Mr.  Lincoln  was  inaugurated 
the  debt  had  increased  to  nearly  $90,000,000,  and  there  had 
accumulated  a  deficit  of  more  than  $70,000,000.  And  those 
four  years  of  Buchanan's  administration  were  not  years  of 
extraordinary  expenditures.  Indeed,  the  average  for  the  four 
years  had  not  been  so  high  as  in  the  last  year  of  the  admin 
istration  of  Mr.  Pierce.  The  deficit  then  did  not  arise  from 
an  increase  of  expenditure,  but  from  a  decrease  of  revenue. 
For  four  years  the  government  had  been  paying  its  ordinary 
expenses  by  the  aid  of  loans  at  ruinous  rates,  and  by  forced 
loans  in  the  form  of  Treasury  notes.  Here,  as  in  the  former 
case,  the  final  remedy  for  the  deficit  was  taxation. 

The  first  act  of  the  last  session  of  Congress  in  Buchanan's 
term  was  an  act  to  authorize  the  issue  of  Treasury  notes  to  meet 
the  expenditures  of  the  government ;  and  almost  the  last  act 
of  that  session  was  the  act  of  March  2,  1861,  to  provide  for 
the  payment  of  outstanding  Treasury  notes,  and  to  meet  the 
expenditures  of  the  government  by  increasing  the  duties  on 
imports.  This  act  was  passed  by  a  Republican  Congress,  and 
was  reluctantly  approved  by  a  President  whose  policy  and 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  101 

whose  party  had  produced  the  deficit,  and  brought  financial 
distress  upon  the  country  by  cutting  too  deeply  and  too  reck 
lessly  into  the  public  revenues. 

MR.  NIBLACK.  I  want  to  inquire  simply  whether  that  deficit  did  not 
arise  mainly  from  the  timidity  which  Congress  felt  about  increasing  taxes 
in  time  of  peace,  and  which  we  now  feel  about  assessing  additional  taxes  ? 

Quite  likely  there  was  timidity  about  putting  on  taxes.  But 
the  deficit  was  caused  by  taking  too  many  of  them  off,  and  the 
surplus  was  restored  by  putting  them  on  again. 

MR.  NIBLACK.  Is  it  not  the  old  story  over  again,  an  unwillingness 
to  tax  unless  some  emergency  like  a  great  war  compels  us  to  do  so  ? 

I  am  merely  stating  the  history  of  these  two  deficits.  Before 
I  close  I  will  discuss  the  question  whether  we  are  to  have 
another  or  not. 

MR.  NIBLACK.  I  only  want  to  make  a  note  as  we  go  along,  for,  as 
the  gentleman  will  remember,  I  happened  to  be  here  in  Congress  at 
that  time,  and  I  know  that  to  have  been  the  case. 

I  have  been  appealing  to  the  past  to  learn  how  deficits  occur. 
In  view  of  their  history,  I  am  warranted  in  the  declaration  that 
our  deficits  in  time  of  peace  have  resulted  from  legislation  that 
has  crippled  the  revenues,  and  that  such  deficits  have  been 
overcome  only  by  replacing  taxes  too  recklessly  repealed. 

Mr.  Chairman,  when  this  House  convened  in  December  last, 
we  were  startled  by  the  declaration  that  another  deficit  was  about 
to  appear.  We  were  informed  that  we  might  look  for  a  deficit 
of  $42,000,000  by  the  end  of  the  current  fiscal  year.  This 
announcement  was  indeed  the  signal  for  alarm  throughout  the 
country ;  and  it  became  the  imperative  duty  of  Congress  to  in 
quire  whether  there  would  be  a  deficit,  and,  if  so,  to  ascertain  its 
cause  and  provide  the  remedy. 

In  this  instance,  to  the  ordinary  causes  that  produce  a  deficit, 
there  had  been  superadded  the  disastrous  financial  calamity 
which  visited  a  portion  of  the  business  interests  of  this  country 
in  September  last;  a  panic  that  fell  with  unparalleled  weight 
and  suddenness,  and  swept  like  a  tornado,  leaving  destruction 
in  its  track.  We  have  not  yet  sufficiently  recovered  from  the 
shock  to  be  able  to  measure  with  accuracy  the  magnitude  of  its 
effects.  We  cannot  yet  tell  how  soon  and  how  completely  the 
revenues  of  the  country  will  recover  from  the  shock.  But  we 


102  REVENUES  AND   EXPENDITURES. 

have  sufficient  data  to  ascertain,  with  some  degree  of  accuracy, 
the  part  that  the  legislation  of  Congress  has  played  in  producing 
the  situation  in  which  we  now  find  ourselves.  That  we  may 
more  clearly  trace  the  legislative  steps  by  which  we  have  reached 
our  present  position,  I  invite  your  attention  to  the  condition  of 
our  finances  at  the  close  of  the  war. 

Leaving  out  of  view  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1865,  in 
which  there  was  paid  over  the  counter  of  the  Treasury  the  enor 
mous  sum  of  $1,290,000,000,  the  accumulated  product  of  taxa 
tion  and  of  loans,  we  begin  our  examination  with  the  year  that 
followed  the  close  of  the  war,  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30, 
1866.  In  that  year,  our  aggregate  revenues,  from  all  sources, 
exclusive  of  loans,  amounted  to  $558,000,000,  and  our  expendi 
tures  to  nearly  $521,000,000,  leaving  us  a  clear  surplus  of 
$37,000,000.  These  were  the  gigantic  proportions  of  our  in 
come  and  our  payments.  From  these  as  a  base  line  we  measure 
the  subsequent  history  of  our  finances.  With  these  vast  totals 
the  work  of  triple  reduction  began; — reduction  of  the  revenue 
by  the  repeal  of  taxes ;  reduction  of  ordinary  payments  by  the 
decrease  of  expenditures ;  reduction  of  the  public  debt  by  ap 
plying  to  it  the  annual  surplus. 

I  present  a  table  which  exhibits  in  parallel  columns  the  annual 
receipts  and  expenditures  from  1866  to  1873.  These  columns 
represent  the  converging  lines  that  mark  the  reduction  of  taxes 
and  the  reduction  of  expenditures.  As  these  lines  approach 
each  other,  the  surplus  diminishes ;  whenever  they  touch  and 
cross  each  other,  the  surplus  is  gone  and  a  deficit  will  appear. 

Receipts  and  Expenditures  of  the  Government. 

For  the  Fiscal  Year  Secretary's  Receipts  exclusive  Expenditures  exclusive  of 

ending  Annual  Report.  of  Loans.  Principal  of  Public  Debt. 

June  30,  1866  Page          2  $558,032,620.06  $520,750,940.48 

June  30,  1867  33,  34  490,634,010.27  346,729,129.33 

June  30,  1868  24,  25  405,638,083.32  377,340,284.86 

June  30,  1869  20  370,943,747.21  321,490,597  75 

June  30,  1870  3  411,255,477.63  3°9>653>56o-75 

June  30,  1871  5  383,323,944.89  292,177,188.25 

June  30,  1872  5  374,106,967.56  277,517,962.67 

June  30,  1873  4,  5  333.738,204.67  290,345,245.33 

From  this  table  it  will  be  seen  that  every  year  since  the  war 
save  one  the  revenues  have  been  decreased  by  the  reduction  of 
taxes;  and  every  year  save  two  the  expenditures  have  decreased. 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  103 

Two  forces  have  been  constantly  at  work,  the  one  reducing 
expenditures,  the  other  repealing  taxes.  And  yet,  by  the  aid 
of  one  and  in  spite  of  the  other,  a  handsome  surplus  has  been 
maintained  in  each  of  these  years.  By  comparing  the  two  col 
umns  given  in  the  table,  it  will  be  seen  that,  notwithstanding 
the  diminution  of  taxes,  the  surplus  increased,  until  in  1870  it 
reached  $100,000,000. 

Keeping  in  view  the  column  of  receipts  into  the  Treasury,  let 
us  call  to  mind  the  various  acts  and  amounts  by  which  the  bur 
dens  of  taxation  have  been  lessened.  The  echoes  of  the  last 
battle  had  hardly  died  away  when  Congress  began  the  grateful 
work  of  reducing  taxation.  This  is  shown  by  the  following 
table. 

Reduction  of  Taxes  since  the  War. 

By  the  act  of  July  13,  1866,  internal  duties  were  repealed 

to  the  amount  of $65,000,000 

By  the  act  of  March  2,  1867,  internal  duties  were  further 

reduced  by  the  sum  of 40,000,000 

By  the  acts  of  February,  March,  and  July,  1868,  internal 

duties  were  still  further  reduced  by  the  sum  of  ....  68,000,000 
By  the  act  of  July  14,  1870,  the  reduction  was  :  — 

On  customs $29,526,410 

On  internal  revenue 55,000,000 

84,526,410 

By  the  acts  of  May  i,  and  June  6,  1872,  the  reduction,  as 
stated  by  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means,  was,  for  eleven  months  of  last  year  :  — 

On  customs $44,365,364 

On  internal  revenue 17,695,456 

62.060,820 
Making  a  total  reduction,  since  the  close  of  the  fiscal  year 

1866,  of $319,587,230 

I  have  here  stated,  not  the  amounts  that  these  taxes  would 
have  produced  if  allowed  to  remain  on  the  statute-book,  but 
the  amounts  they  were  producing  at  the  dates  of  their  repeal. 

I  have  now  examined  the  course  of  revenue  and  expendi 
ture  to  the  close  of  the  last  fiscal  year.  On  the  1st  of  July, 
1873,  the  Treasury  closed  with  a  surplus  of  $43,392,959,  of 
which  amount,  however,  more  than  $29,000,000  was  due  to  the 
sinking  fund.  If  this  year  is  to  show  a  deficit,  it  will  be  because 


104  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

the  expenditures  have  increased,  or  the  revenues  diminished, 
from  those  of  last  year. 

What  are  the  facts?  I  give  the  figures  for  the  two  years, 
omitting  the  sinking  fund  from  each;  those  for  1873  as  they 
stand  on  the  books  of  the  Treasury,  those  for  1874  as  estimated 
by  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  in  his 
speech  of  February  12,  as  follows:  — 

1873, —  Receipts $333,738,204.67 

1874,  — Receipts 281,777,972.99 

Decrease $51,960,231.68 

I  do  not  admit  the  correctness  of  these  estimates  for  the  cur 
rent  year.  The  condition  of  the  Treasury  has  improved  since 
the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  l  made  his  speech.  But  tak 
ing  the  estimate  as  he  gave  it,  and  considering  the  situation  in 
its  worst  aspect,  the  figures  of  the  gentleman  from  Massachu 
setts  show  this :  that,  comparing  this  fiscal  year  with  the  last, 
our  revenues  have  fallen  off  more  than  $52,000,000;  and  there 
fore  it  is  undeniably  true  that,  if  we  are  about  to  meet  a  defi 
cit,  that  deficit  will  occur  not  because  increased  expenditures 
have  cut  away  the  surplus,  but  because  the  revenues  have  suf 
fered  a  loss  of  $52,000,000  during  the  current  fiscal  year, — a 
loss  $9,000,000  greater  than  the  surplus  of  last  year.  Now, 
Mr.  Chairman,  how  came  we  to  lose  this  large  amount  of 
revenue,  if,  indeed,  it  is  lost?  The  explanation  of  that  loss 
can  be  found  by  examining  our  legislation  that  has  reduced  the 
revenues.  Let  us,  then,  go  back  to  the  month  of  July,  1870. 

The  fiscal  year  had  just  closed  with  a  surplus  of  $100,000,000. 
It  was  an  opportunity  to  afford  relief  from  the  burdens  of 
taxation.  Congress  determined,  by  the  act  of  July  14,  1870, 
to  establish  the  sinking  fund  on  a  firm  basis,  by  making  a 
permanent  appropriation  for  its  annual  support;  and,  hav 
ing  done  that,  repealed  and  reduced  taxes  to  the  amount  of 
$84,500,000.  That  was  the  repeal  which  swept  away  the  income 
tax,  although  it  was  to  be  collected  for  the  following  year.  The 
Treasury  did  not  at  once  feel  the  whole  effect  of  so  sweeping  a 
repeal.  In  fact,  the  income  tax,  repealed  at  that  date,  has  been 
paying  revenue  into  the  Treasury  ever  since.  During  the  last 
year  even,  we  received  more  than  $5,000,000  of  revenues  from 
back  taxes  on  incomes.  But,  notwithstanding  this  heavy  reduc- 

1  Mr.  Dawes. 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  105 

tion,  others  were  made  in  the  months  of  May  and  June,  1872, 
which  more  particularly  concern  the  question  of  deficit  we  are 
now  discussing. 

In  spite  of  the  reduction  of  1870,  an  unexpected  amount  of 
revenue  came  pouring  into  the  Treasury  during  the  year  1872, — 
an  amount  sufficient,  by  the  aid  of  reduced  expenditures,  to 
leave  a  surplus  of  more  than  $90,000,000.  Was  that  a  stable 
surplus?  Could  it  be  relied  on  to  continue  and  increase,  even 
if  no  further  reduction  of  taxes  were  made?  Manifestly  not. 
The  Treasury  had  not  yet  felt  the  full  effect  of  the  reduction  of 
1870.  There  was  paid  into  the  Treasury  in  1872  more  than 
$19,000,000  of  back  taxes  on  articles  and  occupations  from 
which  the  tax  had  been  removed  by  the  act  of  1870.  But  there 
was  another  consideration  which  should  have  been  borne  in 
mind  by  Congress  in  its  legislation  of  1872.  We  were  that  year 
receiving  an  amount  of  revenue  from  customs  far  in  excess  of 
any  other  year.  From  commercial  and  other  causes,  which  I 
will  not  pause  to  discuss,  there  had  been  an  unusual  and  abnor 
mal  increase  in  the  amount  of  foreign  importations,  an  increase- 
that  we  could  not  expect  to  continue.  The  revenues  from  cus 
toms  that  year  were  $30,000,000  above  the  average  for  the  four 
preceding  years,  and  $10,000,000  more  than  in  any  other  year 
of  our  history.  It  was  not  safe  for  Congress  to  calculate  upon 
the  continuance  of  that  unusual  revenue  from  customs. 

For  all  these  reasons  it  was  inevitable  that,  with  any  further 
repeal  of  taxes,  the  years  1873  and  1874  would  show  a  falling 
off  in  revenues,  resulting  from  former  legislation,  from  the  na^tu- 
ral  decrease  of  revenues  from  miscellaneous  sources,  and  from 
the  necessary  falling  off  of  importations  from  the  unusual 
amount  of  the  preceding  year.  These  facts  should  have  been 
taken  into  consideration  in  the  spring  of  1872,  when  it  was  pro 
posed  to  make  further  reduction  of  taxes.  No  doubt  a  consid 
erable  reduction  was  possible  and  safe.  The  best  estimate  that 
could  be  made  at  that  time  fixed  the  limit  of  safe  reduction  at 
$50,000,000.  On  the  3d  of  May,  1872,  the  chairman  of  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  in  introducing  his  bill  for  fur 
ther  reduction  of  taxes,  said :  "  Fifty  millions  of  reduction  of 
taxes,  including  the  reduction  on  tea  and  coffee  [which  had 
been  made  just  two  days  before],  was  the  utmost  limit  of  reduc 
tion  admitted  possible  by  any  one  who  has  the  slightest  respon 
sibility  for  the  administratfon  of  affairs  for  the  financial  credit 


106  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

of  the  nation."  Let  it  be  remembered  as  a  part  of  the  current 
history  of  our  legislation,  that  the  chairman  of  the  Committee 
of  Ways  and  Means,  speaking  not  only  by  the  authority  of  his 
own  position,  but  by  the  authority  of  the  Treasury  Department, 
declared  that  $50,000,000  was  the  utmost  limit  to  which  it  was 
safe  to  go  in  the  reduction  of  taxes ;  and  yet,  by  the  two  acts 
of  May  I  and  June  6,  1872,  Congress  cut  off  from  the  vital 
revenues  of  the  government  more  than  $62,000,000,  nearly 
$45,000,000  of  which  was  in  gold.  We  have  the  testimony  of 
the  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  that  the 
committee  of  conference,  in  the  final  adjustment  of  the  bill, 
would  have  cut  down  still  $5,000,000  deeper  but  for  the  ear 
nest  protest  of  the  Treasury  Department.  In  his  speech  on  the 
4th  of  June,  when  the  chairman  presented  the  conference  re 
port  to  the  House,  he  said  that,  when  the  amount  of  proposed 
reduction  "  came  to  the  ears  of  the  Treasury  officials,  they 
brought  down  upon  the  committee  official  statements  to  show 
that,  if  they  reduced  the  revenues  $58,000,000,  those  who  were 
responsible  for  the  administration  of  the  government  were  of 
the  opinion  that  we  should  not  have  enough  to  pay  the  sink 
ing  fund."  But  for  that  protest  the  reduction  would  have  been 
$5,000,000  greater;  it  would  have  been  $67,000,000  in  all. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  if  the  whole  amount  of  this  reduction 
had  afforded  relief  to  the  people  from  the  burdens  of  taxation, 
and  had  been  safe  for  the  Treasury,  it  would  have  been  a  cause 
for  public  rejoicing.  But  we  have  the  authority  of  the  chair 
man  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  for  the  declaration 
that,  while  the  act  of  May  I,  1872,  deprived  the  Treasury  of 
more  than  $25,000,000  in  gold,  it  did  not  relieve  the  burdens 
of  the  people  by  a  single  dollar;  that  the  whole  of  this  vast 
sum  was  divided  between  the  foreign  producer  and  the  whole 
sale  dealer.  I  quote  from  his  speech  of  February  12:  "  When 
we  took  off  the  $25,000,000  from  tea  and  coffee,  it  did  not 
reduce  the  price  to  the  consumer  of  either  article  one  half 
penny.  I  have  the  prices  current  of  the  country  to  bear  me 
out  that  I  am  substantially,  if  not  mathematically,  accurate 
in  the  statement  that  the  whole  of  the  duty  taken  off  was 
divided  between  the  producer  at  the  one  end,  and  the  whole 
sale  dealer  at  the  other."  If  this  revenue,  thus  uselessly  thrown 
away,  were  to-day  coming  into  our  Treasury,  we  should  have 
no  fear  of  a  deficit. 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  107 

Mr.  Chairman,  it  is  a  grateful  task  to  remove  burdens  from 
the  industries  and  the  earnings  of  the  American  people.  No 
more  grateful  work  can  an  American  Congress  be  called  upon 
to  perform.  But  while  we  are  relieving  the  people  from  the 
burdens  of  taxation,  it  should  always  be  borne  in  mind  that  we 
are  in  danger  of  so  crippling  the  revenues  as  to  embarrass 
the  government  and  endanger  the  public  credit  It  is  a  great 
thing  to  remove  all  burdensome  taxes ;  but  there  is  danger 
that,  — while  Congress  may  imitate  Tennyson's  Godiva,  who 

"  Took  the  tax  away, 
And  built  herself  an  everlasting  name,"  — 

yet  in  so  doing  it  may  cause  the  public  credit  to  go  forth  from 
a  despoiled  Treasury,  and,  like  the  Lady  Godiva,  to  ride  naked 
in  the  streets  of  the  world.  We  have  had  abounding  faith  in 
the  elasticity  of  our  revenues.  We  have  found  that  even  reduc 
tion  of  rates  frequently  brings  us  increased  revenues ;  that  the 
buoyant  and  almost  immortal  life  of  our  industries  will  make 
the  tree  of  our  revenues  bloom  again,  how  often  so  ever  we  may 
pluck  its  flowers  and  its  fruits.  We  think  of  it  as  the  fabled 
tree  which  Virgil's  hero  found  in  the  grove  of  Avernus.  When 
ever  the  bough  of  gold  was  plucked  away,  another  sprang  out 
in  its  place,  — 

"  Primo  avulso  non  deficit  alter 
Aureus,  et  simili  frondescit  virga  metallo." 

But,  sir,  we  may  pluck  the  golden  bough  once  too  often.  We 
may  pluck  away  with  it  the  living  forces  of  the  tree  itself.  Just 
that  mistake  has  been  made  twice  before  in  our  political  his 
tory, —  a  mistake  which  has  always  been  atoned  for  only  by 
planting  new  shoots  on  which  new  revenues  might  grow. 

MR.  Cox.  My  friend  from  Ohio,  in  1872,  I  think,  endeavored  to 
cut  down  the  taxes,  along  with  other  gentlemen  on  both  sides  of  the 
House.  I  would  like  to  know  from  him  what  part  of  that  action  he 
objects  to  now,  —  whether  it  was  the  removal  of  the  duty  on  tea,  or  on 
coffee,  or  on  what  particular  article.  He  reproaches  us  for  our  work. 
Will  the  gentleman,  then,  tell  us  wherein  we  were  wrong  ? 

My  worthy  and  learned  friend  will  perhaps  be  relieved  and 
pleased  to  learn  that  I  was  one  of  that  small  but  unpopular  com 
pany  of  twenty-five  who  voted  against  the  repeal  of  the  duty 
on  tea  and  coffee  in  1872,  because  they  thought  it  unwise  legis 
lation. 


108  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  is  it  wonderful,  in  view  of  these  facts, 
that  our  estimated  revenues  for  the  current  year  should  be 
$102,000,000  less  than  the  revenues  for  1871?  What  more  is 
needed  to  explain  this  falling  off  than  the  admitted  fact  that, 
since  the  beginning  of  the  fiscal  year  1871,  we  have  repealed 
and  reduced  taxes  to  the  amount  of  $146,500,000?  And  yet, 
with  that  enormous  reduction,  no  man  would  question  the 
soundness  of  the  Treasury;  no  man  would  doubt  but  that 
to-day,  in  spite  of  the  commercial  crisis  and  all  its  effects,  we 
should  have  a  strong  surplus  in  the  Treasury  but  for  the  useless 
repeal  of  the  duty  on  tea  and  coffee.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is 
necessary  to  restore  that  duty.  I  am  pointing  out  the  effect  of 
its  repeal.  With  the  single  exception  of  the  reduction  on  tea 
and  coffee,  I  have  heartily  joined  in  all  our  legislation  to  reduce 
taxation. 

On  the  1 2th  of  December  last,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
addressed  a  letter  to  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  sug 
gesting  higher  taxes  on  spirits,  tobacco,  and  gas,  and  on  several 
classes  of  corporations.  In  writing  this  letter,  the  Secretary  sur 
veyed  the  situation  as  it  appeared  when  the  worst  effects  of  the 
crisis  were  felt  by  the  Treasury.  It  was  at  that  date  that  a 
deficit  seemed  imminent ;  and  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  and  of  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means  to  give  Congress  the  facts. 

If  there  be  a  deficit,  the  duty  of  Congress  is  plain.  First,  to 
ascertain  the  smallest  amount  by  which  the  necessary  expendi 
tures  of  the  government  may  be  met;  and,  if  there  still  be  a 
deficit,  to  meet  it  by  restoring  some  of  the  revenues  which  we 
have  crippled  by  too  great  a  reduction  of  taxes.  Retrenchment 
of  expenses  is  the  first  duty,  and  the  performance  of  that  duty 
may  be  a  perfect  and  complete  remedy;  but  I  do  not  indorse 
the  doctrine  that  the  expenditures  must  be  cut  down,  at  all 
hazards,  to  the  level  of  the  revenues.  If  necessary,  there  must 
be  help  on  both  sides  of  the  ledger.  If  there  be  a  chasm  to  be 
bridged,  it  must  be  bridged  by  building  from  both  shores ;  by 
decreasing  the  expenditures  on  one  side,  and  increasing  the 
revenues  on  the  other. 

But,  Mr.  Chairman,  the  study  which  I  have  given  to  this  sub 
ject  leads  me  to  believe  that  the  revival  of  business  from  the 
disastrous  effects  of  the  crisis  will  so  increase  our  revenues  that, 
by  the  aid  of  such  reduction  as  may  be  made  in  the  expendi- 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  109 

tares  of  the  next  fiscal  year,  no  deficit  will  occur;  that  the 
Treasury  will  not  go  to  protest ;  that  the  public  credit  will  not 
be  impaired.  Even  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,1  who, 
to  say  the  least,  does  not  paint  the  situation  with  the  color 
of  the  rose,  tells  us  that  we  shall  have  at  the  end  of  the  pres 
ent  fiscal  year,  after  all  our  deficiency  appropriations  are  made, 
a  surplus  of  $10,000,000.  I  think  we  shall  have  a  larger  sum. 
The  receipts  for  the  last  month  show  a  marked  improvement. 
The  official  statement,  published  four  days  ago,  shows  that  the 
debt  was  decreased  during  the  month  of  February  by  the  sum 
of  $2,590,047.45  ;  and  at  the  close  of  the  month  the  Secre 
tary  estimated  that  the  receipts  for  the  current  year  will  be 
$8,000,000  more  than  the  estimate  which  he  sent  to  the  Com 
mittee  of  Ways  and  Means  at  the  beginning  of  that  month. 

Mr.  Chairman,  if  I  have  been  successful  in  this  presentation 
of  facts,  I  have  made  it  apparent  that,  whatever  danger  of  a 
deficit  may  have  threatened  the  Treasury,  that  danger  has  been 
produced  by  two  causes, — too  great  a  reduction  of  taxes,  and 
the  temporary  crippling  of  the  revenues  by  the  commercial 
crisis.  The  last  of  these  causes  was  beyond  the  control  of  legis 
lation  ;  but,  in  spite  of  the  storm,  no  question  of  the  sound 
ness  of  the  Treasury  would  have  been  raised  if  it  had  been  kept 
strong  by  a  sufficient  surplus. 

I  come  now  to  speak  more  particularly  of  our  recent  ex 
penditures.  We  have  seen  how  taxation  has  been  reduced 
since  the  war;  it  is  now  necessary  to  inquire  what  has  been 
done  on  the  other  side  of  the  ledger.  We  have  thus  far 
been  considering  the  revenues.  What  have  been  our  ex 
penditures?  And  here,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  am  sorry  to  turn 
aside  from  the  main  line  of  discussion  to  notice  the  fact  that 
frequent  attempts  have  been  made  during  the  last  three  months 
to  impress  the  public  mind  with  the  belief  that  the  esti 
mates,  the  appropriations,  and  the  expenditures  have  not  only 
been  extravagant,  but  increasing,  in  recent  years.  If  this  is 
so,  it  brings  to  the  door  of  Congress,  and  to  all  those  whom 
Congress  has  intrusted  with  any  share  of  the  responsibility  on 
this  subject,  an  imperative  obligation  to  show  cause  for  what 
they  have  done.  I  should  not  speak  of  this  but  for  the  fact  that 
it  has  several  times  been  referred  to  on  this  floor.  That  we  may 
know  just  what  the  allegations  are,  I  will  quote  three  paragraphs 

1  Mr.  Dawes. 


no  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

from  the  Congressional   Record.     On  the  I5th  of  December, 

1873,  in  the  debate  on  revising  the  estimates,  the  gentleman  from 
Massachusetts  said :  — 

"  Could  I  have  my  own  way  about  it,  the  knife  would  go  into  that  Book 
of  Estimates  ....  until  the  difference  between  current  receipts  and  cur 
rent  expenditures  should  no  longer  exist.  Sir,  the  Book  of  Estimates  is 
a  marvel  to  me.  When  I  take  up  that  broad  book,  so  unlike  that  I  used 
to  carry  under  my  arm,  it  is  most  unintelligible  to  me.  The  only  thing 
about  it  I  can  realize  and  understand  is,  that  year  after  year  the  estimates 
are  going  on  increasing,  until  this  year,  in  the  face  of  these  exigencies,  the 
grand  total  of  estimates  is  about  twelve  millions  more  than  it  was  the  last 
year,  and  about  fourteen  millions  more  than  the  actual  appropriations  of 
last  year."1 

In  the  next  place,  I  call  attention  to  a  paragraph  in  a  speech 
made  by  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky2  on  the  I2th  of  January, 

1874.  In  the  debate  on  the  naval  appropriation  bill  he  said :  — 

"  At  the  last  session  of  the  last  Congress,  after  the  last  Presidential  elec 
tion  was  over,  and  when  members  were  not  soon  to  be  called  to  answer 
to  the  people,  then,  for  the  first  time  since  I  have  been  in  Congress,  for 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  country  as  I  believe,  Congress  appro 
priated  $15,329,000  more  than  all  the  estimates  of  all  the  Depart 
ments.  Three  hundred  and  eight  million  dollars  was  the  amount  the 
Departments  asked:  Congress  gave  them  $319,600,000,  and  $4,000,000 
more  the  other  day,  making  $323,000,000,  an  excess  of  $15,000,000,  the 
highest  amount  ever  given  in  time  of  peace,  and  that,  too,  immediately 
after  the  last  Presidential  election."8 

And  that  we  may  have  the  whole  chapter  before  us,  I  call 
attention  to  the  following  paragraph  in  the  speech  of  the  gen 
tleman  from  Massachusetts,  made  on  the  I2th  of  February:  — 

"  In  1873  the  expenditures  ran  up  to  $290,345,245.33,  and  we  paid 
but  $43,667,630.05  of  the  public  debt.  This  year  our  appropriations 
have  gone  up  from  $290,000,000,  our  expenses  for  the  last  year,  to 
$319,000,000,  without  paying  one  dollar  of  the  public  debt."4 

To  these  three  points,  as  they  represent  the  three  ideas  of 
estimates,  appropriations,  and  expenditures,  I  desire  now  to  re 
spond  briefly.  I  did  respond  to  two  of  them  at  the  time.  I 
will  not  pause  to  notice  the  rather  singular  criticism  made  by  the 

1  Congressional  Record,  Decemler  15,  1873,  pp.  212,  213.  z  Mr.  Beck. 

8  Congressional  Record,  January  12,  1874,  p.  597. 
4  Ibid.,  February  12,  1874,  p.  1449. 


REVENUES  AND   EXPENDITURES.  in 

gentleman  from  Massachusetts l  in  reference  to  the  bulk  of  the 
Book  of  Estimates,  except  to  say  that  two  years  ago  the  Com 
mittee  on  Appropriations  found  this  fault  with  the  book,  —  that 
it  was  too  condensed  in  its  statements,  —  that  the  estimates  and 
the  reasons  therefor  were  not  given  with  sufficient  detail ;  and  at 
the  suggestion  of  the  committee,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
ordered  a  fuller  statement,  and  gave  us  a  quarto  instead  of  a 
duodecimo.  Now,  while  the  quarto  is  somewhat  too  large  for  a 
pocket  companion,  yet  it  happens  that  the  bulk  of  the  book  is 
not  a  measure  of  the  appropriations  asked  for,  and  that  the 
modest  duodecimo  that  former  chairmen  of  the  Committee  on 
Appropriations  carried  under  their  arms  estimated  a  great  many 
millions  more  of  appropriations  than  the  swollen  quarto  which 
I  have  had  the  honor  to  carry  the  last  two  years. 

Referring  to  the  statement  of  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky,2 
it  would  indeed  be  a  grave  matter,  and  one  requiring  explana 
tion,  if  Congress  had  appropriated  $15,000,000  above  the  amount 
estimated  as  necessary  for  the  public  service.  I  answered  at  the 
time,  that  what  the  gentleman  called  the  estimates  of  last  session 
were  only  the  aggregate  given  in  the  regular  Book  of  Estimates 
sent  in  on  the  first  day  of  the  session.  I  also  showed  that,  from 
the  day  that  book  was  sent  in  until  the  last  day  of  the  session, 
additional  estimates  were  constantly  coming  in.  For  instance,  a 
whole  book  of  estimates  of  deficiencies,  amounting  to  more  than 
$6,000,000,  came  in  after  the  regular  Book  of  Estimates  was 
printed.  I  have  here  compiled  from  the  records  of  the  Com 
mittee  on  Appropriations  a  list  of  those  estimates  that  came  to 
the  House  or  to  the  committee  from  the  several  Departments 
after  the  Book  of  Estimates  came  in,  and  the  total  amounts  to 
the  sum  of  $23,392,540.36.  These  were  just  as  really  estimates 
as  though  they  had  been  printed  in  the  Book  of  Estimates;  and 
when  the  appropriations  of  Congress  are  compared  with  the 
estimates,  we  must  compare  them  with  the  whole,  and  not  with 
a  part.  The  gentleman  was  wholly  wrong  in  his  allegation. 
The  appropriations  made  by  Congress  at  the  last  session  were 
far  below  the  estimates. 

MR.  BECK.  Is  it  not  a  fact  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  on  the 
ist  of  December  last,  —  December,  1873,  —  in  his  Book  of  Estimates, 
page  175,  states  that  all  the  estimates  for  the  year  1874  were  $308,323,256, 
while  the  gentleman  himself  has  stated  on  this  floor  that  the  appropriations 
were  $319,000,000? 

i  Mr.  Dawes.  2  Mr.  Beck. 


112  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

The  sum  of  $308,000,000,  of  which  the  gentleman  speaks,  is 
what  is  found  in  the  Book  of  Estimates  only,  and  does  not 
include  the  additional  estimates  to  which  I  have  just  referred. 

MR.  BECK.  Ah  !  but  this  is  the  question  :  After  all  these  deficiency 
bills  were  passed,  on  the  ist  of  December,  1873,  did  not  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  in  his  Book  of  Estimates  again  repeat  that  all  the  esti 
mates  for  the  year  1874  were  $308,000,000? 

He  did  not.  In  this  year's  Book  of  Estimates  he  states  what 
his  estimates  were  for  1874.  But  that  statement  is  taken  bodily, 
from  millions  down  to  cents,  from  the  Book  of  Estimates  of  the 
previous  year,  which  book  was  in  print  and  on  our  tables  on  the 
first  day  of  the  session,  in  December,  1872.  All  this  I  pointed 
out  to  the  gentleman  in  the  debate  some  weeks  ago. 

MR.  BECK.  I  will  say  this,  and  then  I  will  not  interrupt  the  gentleman 
further.  I  will  make  good,  when  I  come  to  reply  to  him,  not  only  the 
statement  that  we  appropriated  $319,000,000,  when  the  estimates  merely 
called  for  $308,000,000,  but  I  will  make  good  also  that  the  gentleman  mis 
led  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,1  by  making 
him  admit  that  the  sinking  fund  was  included  in  this  year's  appropriations, 
and  not  in  other  years',  when  he  ought  to  have  known  that  the  sinking 
fund  was  included  in  them  all,  and  I  will  demonstrate  that  fact. 

When  the  gentleman  attempts  that  demonstration  I  shall  be 
ready  to  try  the  question  of  arithmetic  with  him.  I  come  now 
to  the  last  of  the  three  paragraphs  which  I  have  quoted  from 
the  Record,  and  that  is  the  statement  of  the  gentleman  from 
Massachusetts.1  I  would  not  refer  to  that  .statement  now,  partic 
ularly  in  the  absence  of  the  distinguished  gentleman,  but  for  the 
fact  that  the  answer  which  I  made  at  the  moment,  and  which 
the  gentleman  very  frankly  acknowledged  before  the  House 
was  correct,  does  not  seem  to  have  reached  the  country  at  all. 
Accusation  rides  on  horseback,  while  refutation  travels  very 
slowly  on  foot.  The  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  startled  the 
House,  at  least  for  a  moment,  and  startled  the  country,  by  the 
statement  which  has  been  read  at  the  Clerk's  desk,  that  during 
the  current  fiscal  year  the  appropriations  had  swollen  from 
$290,000,000,  the  figures  of  last  year,  to  $319,000,000,  the 
figures  of  this  year;  in  other  words,  that  the  extravagance  of 
Congress  had  swollen  the  expenditures  by  the  enormous  sum  of 
$29,000,000.  That  was  indeed  a  startling  statement,  but  the  only 

1  Mr.  Dawes. 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  113 

thing  startling  about  it  was  the  $29,000,000 ;  and  when  the  cor 
rection  was  made  by  which  the  $29,000,000  was  taken  bodily 
out  of  his  statement,  the  cause  of  the  alarm  was  gone,  and  the 
alarm  itself  ought  also  to  have  disappeared  with  it.  But,  sir, 
though  the  correction  was  made  in  open  House,  I  desire  to 
show  the  committee  how  little  the  country  understands  what  the 
correction  was.  The  daily  papers  the  next  morning  contained 
about  two  columns  of  the  Associated  Press  report  of  the  speech 
of  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,  and  I  will  read  the  only 
portion  of  that  report  which  relates  to  the  correction :  "  Mr, 
Garfield  criticised  some  of  Mr.  Dawes's  figures,  especially  those 
relating  to  the  sinking  fund."  I  will  add  that  the  special  de 
spatches  contained  a  much  fuller  report.  But  most  of  the  public 
journals  received  only  the  despatches  of  the  Associated  Press. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  the  reading  public  generally  understand  to 
this  day  that  the  first  statement  of  the  gentleman  from  Massa 
chusetts  remains  uncontradicted,  and  that  we  have  spent  during 
the  current  fiscal  year  nearly  $30,000,000  more  than  during  the 
preceding  year. 

But,  Mr.  Chairman,  it  is  not  just  to  compare  the  appropria 
tions  of  one  fiscal  year  with  the  expenditures  of  another,  for  the 
plain  reason  that  expenditures  do  not  equal  appropriations. 
Appropriations  are  intended  to  be  made  large  enough  to  cover 
and  more  than  cover  the  expenditures.  Although  there  may 
be  deficiencies  on  some  items,  yet  there  are  always  still  large 
sums  of  unexpended  balances  to  be  covered  into  the  Treasury 
each  year.  It  is  because  of  that  very  difference  between  ap 
propriations  and  expenditures  that  the  gentleman  from  Massa 
chusetts  could  point  to  the  fact  that  there  were  $72,000,000  of 
unexpended  balances  of  former  years  ready  to  be  covered  into 
the  Treasury  at  the  end  of  the  present  fiscal  year. 

I  have  compiled  from  the  annual  and  permanent  appropria 
tions  a  statement  of  the  amounts  appropriated  for  each  fiscal 
year  since  1869,  not  including  the  sinking  fund.  Stating  it  in 
round  millions  the  account  stands  thus :  — 

Total  Appropria-  Deficiency  Appropriations 

tions.  for  former  Years. 

For  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1870  .     .     .  $317,000,000  .     .  .  $23,000,000 

For  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1871  .     .     .     315,000,000  .    .  .    22,000,000 

For  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1872  .    .     .     295,000,000  .     .  .     14,000,000 

For  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1873  •     •     •     291,000,000  .     .  .       6,500,000 

For  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1874  .     .     .     290,000,000  .    .  .     11,000,000 
VOL.  n.                                                     8 


114  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

From  this  table  it  will  be  seen  that  in  every  year  the  appro 
priations,  including  those  for  deficiencies,  exceed  the  expendi 
tures;  and  that  there  has  been  a  decrease  in  the  amount  of 
appropriations  for  each  of  those  years. 

In  answer  to  all  that  has  been  said  on  the  subject,  I  point  to 
the  fact  that  the  appropriations  made  at  the  last  session  of  Con 
gress,  for  the  current  year,  were  less  than  the  appropriations  for 
any  year  since  the  war. 

Mr.  Chairman,  as  I  have  already  said,  there  have  been  two 
years  since  the  war  in  which  the  expenditures  were  greater  than 
during  the  preceding  years.  One  was  the  year  1868,  when  the 
expenditures  appeared  greater  by  $30,000,000  than  those  of 
1867.  The  other  was  in  1873,  when  the  expenditures  appeared 
$12,000,000  greater  than  in  1872.  This  latter  year  of  increase 
was  the  first  year  of  my  service  as  chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  Appropriations.  Whatever  share  of  responsibility  belongs 
to  me  for  that  increase  I  cheerfully  bear.  Not  the  least  diffi 
cult  part  of  my  task  was  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  dis 
tinguished  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,1  whose  committee 
had  largely  reduced  expenditures  the  preceding  year,  and  thus 
made  it  all  the  more  difficult  to  continue  the  reduction. 

It  ought  also  to  be  borne  in  mind,  that  reduction  of  our  ex 
penditures  cannot  be  carried  on  indefinitely.  The  reductions  we 
have  made  since  1866  were  possible  only  because  we  have  been 
coming  down  from  the  high  level  of  war  expenditures  to  the  low 
level  of  peace.  It  is  apparent  that  we  must  soon  reach  the  limit 
of  reduction,  must  soon  reach  a  point  where  the  constant  and 
rapid  growth  of  the  country,  its  increase  of  population  and  of 
settled  territory,  will  bring  us  under  the  control  of  the  normal 
law  of  increase ;  and  that  thenceforward  our  expenses  must  grow 
with  the  growth  and  the  development  of  the  country.  Expendi 
tures  thus  adjusted  are  not  only  necessary  and  defensible,  but 
they  are  the  real  index  by  which  we  measure  the  health  and 
prosperity  of  a  nation.  Have  we  reached  that  limit  of  reduc 
tion?  In  a  speech  which  I  delivered  on  the  legislative  appro 
priation  bill  of  two  years  ago,  I  ventured  to  predict  that,  if 
peace  continued  undisturbed,  we  should  reach  the  limit  of  pos 
sible  reduction  in  1876,  —  that  by  that  time  the  interest  on 
the  public  debt  would  be  reduced  to  $95,000,000,  and  that  the 
total  annual  expenditures,  including  this  interest,  would  not 

1  Mr.  Dawes. 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  115 

exceed  $230,000,000.  Perhaps  that  was  too  hopeful  a  view. 
The  heavy  reduction  of  revenues  makes  it  doubtful  whether 
we  can  reduce  the  interest  to  the  figure  suggested;  and  then 
there  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  immortality  in  war  bills. 

For  the  information  of  the  House,  I  have  made  a  careful 
analysis  of  the  actual  expenditures  of  the  fiscal  year  which  ended 
on  the  3Oth  of  June,  1873.  I  have  grouped  these  expenditures 
into  three  classes:  first,  those  which  were  made  directly  on 
account  of  the  war ;  secondly,  the  expenses  of  the  army  and 
navy ;  thirdly,  all  other  expenditures,  including  the  civil  estab 
lishment  and  public  works. 

I.  Amounts  paid  during  the  fiscal  Year  1873,  on  Account  of  Expenses 
growing  directly  out  of  the  late  War. 

Joint  Select  Committee  on  Alleged  Outrages  in  Southern  States    .  #1,087.20 

Investigations  in  relation  to  elections  in  Louisiana  and  Arkansas    .  20,000.00 

Payment  of  judgments  of  Court  of  Claims 489,034.70 

Southern  Claims  Commission 52,800.04 

Tribunal  of  arbitration  at  Geneva 62,210.22 

Expenses  of  national  currency 181,654.84 

Expenses  of  national  loan 2,806,863.94 

Refunding  national  debt 54,726.83 

Cost  of  assessing  and  collecting  internal  revenue,  including  pay 
ments  of  drawbacks  and  amounts  illegally  collected     ....  6,687,039.49 

Defending  claims  for  cotton  seized 52-95 

Salaries  of  direct  tax  commissioners 54°- 55 

Expenses  of  collecting  direct  tax  in  Delaware 22.46 

Repayment  for  lands  sold  for  direct  taxes 9*075.00 

Return  of  proceeds  of  captured  and  abandoned  property  ....  1,960,679.26 
Collection  of  captured  and  abandoned  property,  records  and  evi 
dence  respecting  same 84,459.50 

Refunding  internal  taxes  illegally  collected 1,507.44 

Refunding  proceeds  of  cotton  seized 3,282,00 

Premium  on  bonds  purchased  in  currency 5,105,919.99 

Payment  of  interest  on  the  public  debt 104,750,688.44 

Bounties 465,049.14 

Keeping,  transporting,  and  supplying  prisoners  of  war 258,080.11 

Military  telegraph 17,220.36 

National  cemeteries 43I>2I9-22 

Maintenance  of  steam-rams 14,548.93 

Gunboats  on  Western  rivers 33,408.28 

Providing  for  comfort  of  sick  and  discharged  soldiers i»3°5-79 

Payment  of  stoppages  or  fines  due  National  Asylum  for  Disabled 

Volunteer  Soldiers i93>75°-59 

Travelling  expenses  of  California  and  Nevada  volunteers      .    .    .  28,000.00 

Travelling  expenses  of  First  Michigan  Cavalry 500.00 

Commutation  of  rations  to  prisoners  of  war  in  Rebel  States  .     .     .  2,000.00 

Draft  and  substitute  fund 42,792.84 

Amount  carried  forward $123,759,520.11 


n  6  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

Amount  brought  forward $123,759,520.11 

Appliances  for  disabled  soldiers  8,000.00 

Transportation  of  insane  volunteer  soldiers 1,000.00 

Support  of  Freedmen's  Hospital  and  Asylum,  Washington,  D.  C.  .  72,000.00 
Support  of  Bureau  of  Refugees,  Freedmen,  and  Abandoned  Lands 

(regular) 93.924-79 

Support  of  Bureau  of  Refugees,  Freedmen,  and  Abandoned  Lands 

(transfer) 12,871.95 

Horses  and  other  property  lost  in  the  military  service 99,975-85 

Reimbursing  State  of  Kansas  for  military  expenses 336,817.37 

Reimbursing  State  of  Kentucky  for  military  expenses 525,258.72 

Refunding  to  States  expenses  incurred  in  raising  volunteers  .  .  .  758,110.31 
Defraying  expenses  of  minute-men  and  volunteers  in  Pennsylvania, 

Maryland,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Kentucky 28,762.32 

Supplying  arms  and  munitions  of  war  to  loyal  citizens  in  revolted 

States :  .  .  945-38 

Capture  of  Jefferson  Davis 2,051.00 

Claims  of  loyal  citizens  for  supplies  furnished  during  the  rebellion,  927,910.19 

Bounty  for  destruction  of  enemy's  vessels 133,802.28 

Payment  to  captors  of  the  Rebel  ram  Albemarle .  202,912.90 

Payment  to  officers  and  crew  of  the  United  States  steamer  Kear- 

sarge 141,377.00 

Pensions1 29,359,426.86 

Relief  acts  (various) 797,748.78 

Total $157,262,415.81 

II.  Expenses  of  Military  and  Naval  Establishments. 

For  the  Army,  after  deducting  payments  for  the  late 
war,  already  mentioned  in  the  first  group,  and  for 
improvements  of  rivers  and  harbors,  and  other 
public  works $32,524,548.64 

For  the  Navy 21,474,433.61 

"  $53.998,982.25 

III.  Civil  Service  proper,  being  all  the  Expenditures  not  named 

in  the  First  and  Second  Groups. 
i.  The  civil  list,  including  expenses   of  legislative, 
judicial,  and   executive    officers  of   the   govern 
ment,  not  including  Internal  Revenue  and  Cus 
toms  Departments $16,026,321.32 

Increase  of  salaries  by  act  of  March  3,  1873      •     •     •       1,948,210.04 
Foreign  intercourse I  292  008  49 

J?dianS     '    '   . 7,946,809.53 

Expenses  of  mints,  coast  survey,  light-house  service, 

revenue-cutter  service,  and  marine  hospitals  .     .       4,812,183.58 
Cost  of  collecting  customs  duties,  exclusive  of  reve 
nue-cutter   service,  and  building   and   repairing 
custom-houses,  including  the  refunding  of  excess 
of  deposits  and  amounts  illegally  collected      .     .     12,586,045.93 

Amounts  carried  forward $44,611,578.89  $211,261,398.06 

1  A  portion  of  this  amount  is  for  pensions  to  soldiers  of  the  war  of  1812. 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  11; 

Amounts  brought  forward $44,611,578.89  $211,261,398.06 

Deficiencies  in  the  revenues  of  the  Post-Office  De 
partment  4,765,475.00 

Mail-steamship  service 725,000.00 

Expenses  of  eighth  and  ninth  census 105,762.44 

Survey  of  public  lands,  and  land  funds  to  States  .     .  1,401,971.27 

Government  of  Territories 271,985.^6 

Steamboat  inspection  service 221,917.50 

2.  Extraordinary  expenses  :  — 

Investigation  of  Senatorial  election  in  Kansas       .     .  20,000  oo 

Survey  of  boundary  between  United  States  and  Brit 
ish  possessions 2,304.63 

Commissioners  to  International  Penitentiary  Congress 

at  London 5,000.00 

Copies  of  proceedings  of  same 1,362.65 

International  Exposition  at  Vienna 111,146.26 

Payments  for  coin,  nickels,  &c.,  destroyed  by  fire  at 

Chicago 370,813.24 

Miscellaneous 1,662,634.86 

$54,277,052.10 

3.  Public  works  :  — 

Custom-houses  and  post-offices,  and  repairs  and  pres 
ervation  of  same $3,270,329.90 

Marine  hospitals 61,928.73 

Light-houses  and  repairs 41,408,851.49 

Court-houses,   post-offices,  and    building  for   State, 

War,  and  Navy  Departments 5>352>4S2-34 

Arsenals  and  armories,  and  Military  Academy  build 
ings  9l6>476-33 

Forts  and  fortifications 1,801,766.92 

Rivers  and  harbors 6,371,687.32 

Navy  yards 1,370,587.06 

Interior  Department  building 10,000.00 

Buildings,  Government  Hospital  for  Insane,  Columbia 
Hospital,  and  Columbia  Institution  for  Deaf  and 

Dumb 179,800.00 

Improvements  of  public  grounds,  streets,  and  avenues 
in  the  city  of  Washington,  including  Washington 
Aqueduct  and  bridges  across  the  Potomac  River, 
extension  of  Capitol  grounds  and  Capitol  build 
ing  4,062,915.08 

$24,806,795.17 

Grand  total $290,345.245-33 

It  will  be  seen  by  an  examination  of  this  analysis  that  every 
expenditure  enumerated  in  the  first  group  is  a  direct  charge 
of  the  late  war.  Now,  that  group  amounts  in  the  total  to 
$157,262,416.81;  that  is,  54  per  cent  of  all  the  expenditures 
of  the  government  for  the  last  fiscal  year,  excluding  the  sink 
ing  fund.  In  examining  those  items  one  by  one,  I  find  but 


n8  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

a  single  place  where  it  seems  to  me  there  has  been  any  ex 
travagance  whatever ;  and  that  is  the  expenses  of  the  national 
loan,  to  which  I  will  refer  before  I  am  done.  I  ask  gentle 
men  to  go  over  those  items,  and  say  what  portion  of  the 
$157,000,000  expended  in  paying  the  charges  of  the  war  could 
possibly  have  been  left  out  with  justice. 

In. the  second  group  I  have  placed  the  army  and  the  navy, — 
not  counting  in  the  public  works  for  rivers  and  harbors,  navy 
yards,  arsenals,  and  the  like,  that  have  been  built  in  connection 
with  the  navy  and  the  army,  but  the  net  charges  of  the  army 
and  the  navy  themselves.  These  make  the  second  group ; 
and  they  amount  to  $53,998,982.25  ;  that  is,  just  19  per  cent  of 
the  whole  expense  of  the  year. 

The  third  group  embraces  all  other  expenditures,  and  I 
have  sub-grouped  them  for  convenience  into  three  heads: 
first,  the  civil  service  proper,  the  civil  establishment  repre 
sented  by  this  bill  and  other  kindred  appropriations  ;  secondly, 
extraordinary  civil  expenses  that  came  in  during  the  year ; 
thirdly,  public  works  of  all  kinds  grouped  together.  Now 
this  third  group  and  its  sub-groups  amount  in  the  total  to 
$79,083,847.27,  or  27  per  cent  of  the  entire  expenses  of  the 
government. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  take  the  results:  $290,000,000,  —  54  per 
cent  directly  for  the  war;  19  per  cent  for  our  military  and 
naval  establishments;  and  27  per  cent  for  all  other  expenses 
put  together.  When  gentlemen  attack  the  expenditures  of 
the  government,  they  ought  to  go  carefully  through  the  items 
one  by  one,  and  specify  those  that  are  extravagant;  they 
should  specify  the  item  that  is  wrongfully  there.  It  will  not 
do  to  declaim  against  extravagance  in  general,  and  not  specify- 
where  it  is.  I  have  endeavored,  in  this  statement,  to  spread 
out  as  on  an  open  scroll  the  expenditures  of  the  government; 
and  I  ask  the  help  of  every  man  in  this  House  to  point  out  the 
places  where  real,  effective,  wise  retrenchment  can  be  made. 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  first  group  I  have  placed  only 
those  items  of  expenditure  which  grew  directly  out  of  the  war ; 
yet  it  will  not  be  denied  that  a  very  considerable  portion  of  the 
expenses  in  the  other  two  groups  were  made  necessary  in  con 
sequence  of  the  war.  But  as  they  all  belong  to  the  annual 
expenditures  of  our  civil  and  military  establishments,  it  is  diffi 
cult  to  say  just  what  portion  is  fairly  chargeable  to  that  cause. 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  119 

It  will  not  be  denied  that  the  vast  masses  of  accounts  for 
bounty,  for  back  pay,  for  materials  furnished,  for  war  claims  in 
all  their  innumerable  forms,  that  came  to  the  Treasury  for  set 
tlement,  have  required  a  very  great  increase  of  clerical  force  in 
all  the  auditing  and  accounting  departments  of  the  government; 
and  the  numerous  payments  which  have  been  made  on  account 
of  the  war  fund  up  to  the  current  year  show  that  a  large  por 
tion  of  the  force  in  all  these  departments  is  still  employed  on 
this  business.  Again,  the  destruction  of  our  light-houses  along 
the  Southern  coast,  the  neglect  of  our  rivers  and  harbors,  and 
of  public  buildings,  in  all  the  States  lately  in  the  rebellion,  has 
brought  upon  the  country  the  necessity  for  restoration,  repair, 
and  rebuilding,  which  has  greatly  increased  that  class  of  our 
expenditures.  We  are  still  maintaining  an  increased  civil  es 
tablishment  because  of  the  war.  And  it  is  in  this  part  of  our 
civil  administration  where  we  shall  find  most  opportunity  for 
retrenchment,  where  we  shall  find  it  possible  to  muster  out 
employees  and  abolish  expenditures,  which,  though  they  have 
been  needed,  can  be  dispensed  with  in  the  future  without  crip 
pling  the  ordinary  service  of  the  government.  In  the  pending 
bill,  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  have  indicated  by  legis 
lative  provisions  such  measures  of  retrenchment  as  they  believe 
the  service  will  bear  without  injury.  And  they  invite  the  House 
to  examine,  with  the  closest  scrutiny,  the  items  of  expenditure 
exhibited  in  the  table  I  have  given,  and  to  aid  the  committee  in 
pointing  out  places  where  further  reduction  can  possibly  be 
made.  Let  our  criticisms  be  accompanied  by  legislative  pro 
visions  that  will  rectify  the  errors  of  which  we  complain. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  have  drawn,  from  my  own  study  of 
these  groups,  a  few  conclusions  as  to  what  can  be  done.  I 
speak  for  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  when  I  say  that  we 
have  agreed  upon  this  principle,  that  we  will  not  undertake  to 
cut  the  appropriations  down  at  all  hazards  to  the  level  of  rev 
enues,  however  low  that  level  may  be.  We  do  not  believe  in 
that.  We  believe  that  if  a  cutting  down,  such  as  ought  to  be 
made  for  its  own  sake,  does  not  carry  the  Treasury  through, 
then  it  is  the  business  of  Congress  to  provide  ways  and  means ; 
it  is  the  business  of  Congress  to  tax  whenever  taxation  is 
needed  to  prevent  a  deficit. 

But  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  propose  two  things: 
first,  that  wherever  an  unnecessary  expenditure  has  grown  out 


120  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

of  the  war,  or  grown  up  in  any  other  way,  or  an  abuse  has  crept 
in,  that  expenditure  and  that  abuse  should  be  lopped  off,  —  in 
other  words,  if  any  expense  can  be  mustered  out,  we  propose 
to  muster  it  out  for  all  future  time.  Having  done  that,  there 
is  just  one  other  thing  that  we  think  can  be  done.  Going  over 
the  proper  and  fitting  expenditures  of  the  government,  if  we 
come  to  any  that  can  be  postponed  for  a  year  without  seriously 
impairing  any  great  national  interest,  we  say  postpone  it. 
When  we  have  done  those  two  things,  we  do  not  propose  to 
cut  down  another  dollar  anywhere.  And  if  in  this  bill  gentle 
men  can  show  us  that  we  have  anywhere  cut  into  the  life  of  the 
government  or  its  necessary  functions,  we  desire  to  restore  what 
has  been  taken  away.  If  in  any  place  we  ought  to  have  in 
creased  expenditures  or  appropriations,  and  have  not  done  so, 
point  it  out  and  we  will  move  an  increase. 

Guided  by  these  two  principles,  the  Committee  on  Appropri 
ations  desire  to  suggest  in  what  ways  retrenchment  can  be 
made ;  and  to  that  end  I  submit  the  estimates  for  the  next  year 
as  we  find  them.  It  should  be  understood  that  the  estimates 
set  down  in  the  Book  of  Estimates  are  not  all  that  we  must  pass 
upon.  Others  come  which  are  not  written  in  that  book.  On  the 
eighth  page  of  his  annual  report,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
states  that  the  estimates  of  appropriations  for  the  fiscal  year 
ending  June  30,  1875,  will  be  $319,198,736.82.  This  amount 
is  given  in  full  detail  in  the  Book  of  Estimates.  It  is  a  large 
sum.  It  includes  all  the  estimates  coming  under  the  head  of 
permanent  appropriations;  it  includes  the  interest  and  the 
premium  on  the  public  debt;  it  includes  the  sinking  fund;  it 
includes  almost  all  the  public  works ;  but  there  are  some  things 
which  it  does  not  include.  It  does  not  include  the  estimates 
for  continuing  the  work  on  the  State,  War,  and  Navy  Depart 
ment  building.  That  building,  for  some  reason,  has  never  been 
reported  in  any  of  the  regular  Books  of  Estimates.  The  reason 
is,  I  suppose,  that  it  has  thus  far  been  under  the  charge  of  the 
Secretary  of  State,  and  he  sends  in  his  estimate  directly.  It 
has  not  yet  come  in;  but  I  understand  that  his  estimate  is 
$1,000,000  for  the  next  fiscal  year.  Again,  it  does  not  include 
the  deficiency  estimates  of  nearly  $3,000,000,  which  were  sent 
in  a  few  days  since.  In  the  next  place  it  includes  no  estimate 
for  the  Centennial  Exposition.  That  estimate  seems  to  have 
sprung  up  in  the  two  houses  themselves,  or  perhaps  it  has 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  121 

come  to  us  from  the  country.  Whatever  that  estimate  is,  it  is 
to  be  added  to  make  up  the  total.  It  has  not  yet  assumed  a 
very  definite  shape.  In  the  next  place,  the  estimates  of  the 
Board  of  Public  Works  are  not  in  the  Book  of  Estimates,  but 
come  to  us  from  the  President,  and  amount  to  about  $4,000,000. 
And,  finally,  there  has  been  appropriated,  on  an  average,  for 
the  last  two  years,  $3,500,000  in  the  form  of  relief  acts,  pension 
bills,  and  bills  sent  to  us  from  the  Southern  Claims  Commission, 
which  do  not  appear  in  any  Book  of  Estimates. 

I  believe  I  have  now  enumerated  all  the  estimates  which 
are  likely  to  come  to  us ;  and  the  grand  total  is  a  little  over 
$330,000,000.  Large  as  the  amount  is,  it  is  more  than  a  million 
less  than  the  corresponding  estimates  of  last  year.  It  includes 
of  course  the  sinking  fund ;  it  includes  all  estimates  that  I  can 
hear  of  from  all  sources.  Of  course  a  large  number  of  these 
items  we  shall  not  appropriate  for;  but  taking  $330,000,000  as 
the  total  of  all  possible,  or  at  least  probable  estimates,  what  re 
duction  can  we  make?  The  Committee  on  Appropriations  have 
gone  over  all  the  bills  except  one  with  some  care,  at  least  far 
enough  to  find  out  what  they  think  will  be  needed.  We  have 
made  no  estimate  as  to  how  much  reduction  can  be  made  in 
the  postal  service,  and  for  the  reason  that  when  the  new  lettings 
come  in  they  may  change  the  entire  gauge  and  basis  of  the  esti 
mates.  I  therefore  leave  out  of  the  calculation  the  Post-Office 
appropriation  bill  altogether.  Leaving  that  out,  I  give  the 
following  as  the  facts  thus  far  elicited:  we  have  passed  the 
Army,  Navy,  and  Fortification  appropriation  bills;  and  these 
three  bills,  as  they  passed  the  House,  appropriate  a  total  of 
$11,663,287  less  than  the  original  estimates.  The  gentleman 
from  New  York  made  the  statement  correctly  as  to  the  bills 
themselves ;  but  one  item  was  not  given  in  his  statement,  the 
item  estimated  at  a  million  and  a  quarter  for  arming  the  forti 
fications,  which  did  not  go  into  either  bill,  which  the  committee 
agreed  to  drop,  and  which  was  therefore  never  reported  to  the 
House  in  any  form. 

So  the  three  bills  which  have  passed  the  House  have  appro 
priated  $11,500,000,  in  round  numbers,  below  the  original  esti 
mates.  In  the  bill  now  under  discussion,  the  reduction  below 
the  estimates  is  four  and  a  half  millions.  One  million  of  this 
reduction  results  from  the  repeal  of  the  law  of  a  year  ago  enact 
ing  an  increase  of  salaries.  One  half-million  more  results  from 


122  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

the  reduction  of  the  number  of  clerks  and  other  employees  in 
the  departments,  as  proposed  by  the  Committee  on  Appro 
priations  in  the  pending  bill.  In  the  Indian  Appropriation 
Bill,  reported  yesterday,  the  reduction  below  the  estimates  is 
$1,700,000,  in  round  numbers. 

There  now  remains  to  be  considered  the  great  Miscellaneous 
Appropriation  Bill.  We  believe  it  will  be  possible  to  reduce  on 
light-houses  $1,000,000;  on  navy  yards,  $400,000;  on  arsenals, 
$300,000;  on  the  public  buildings  and  grounds  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  which  are  under  the  charge  of  the  Supervising 
Architect  of  the  Capitol  and  of  the  Commissioner  of  Public 
Buildings  and  Grounds,  $900,000;  and  on  appropriations  for 
buildings  under  the  charge  of  the  Supervising  Architect  of  the 
Treasury,  $2,500,000;  making  a  total  reduction  in  the  miscel 
laneous  appropriation  bill  of  $5,100,000. 

The  committee  are  of  opinion  that  the  very  large  estimates 
for  rivers  and  harbors  ought  to  be  reduced  $11,500,000.  The 
estimates  are  nearly  $16,000,000,  and  we  have  rarely  given 
$5,000,000  in  any  one  year.  If  $4,000,000  were  given,  it 
would  be  about  the  average  for  several  years,  and  would  enable 
us  to  make  a  reduction  of  $i  1,500,000  on  that  bill. 

The  pensions  will  remain  nearly  stationary.  Although  the 
gentleman  in  charge  of  that  bill  authorized  me  to  say  to  the 
House  that  he  thinks  we  can  reduce  half  a  million,  I  do  not 
reckon  that  in,  thinking  we  shall  probably  not  be  able  to 
make  a  reduction  there.  If  there  be  a  reduction,  it  will  be 
simply  because  the  pensions  are  expiring. 

The  Military  Academy  Bill  will  remain  almost  precisely  at 
the  figures  of  last  year.  The  gentleman  in  charge  of  that  bill 
informs  me  that  he  does  not  see  now  that  he  can  make  a 
reduction  of  more  than  $10,000  below  the  figures  of  last  year, 
for  the  reason  that  the  number  of  cadets  in  the  Military  Acad 
emy  is  increased  by  forty-nine,  in  consequence  of  the  increase 
of  Congressional  districts.  Last  year  the  Committee  on  Appro 
priations  reported  in  favor  of  extending  the  term  of  study 
to  six  years.  But  that  proposition  was  not  adopted.  We 
cannot  therefore  more  than  maintain  the  old  level  as  regards 
the  Military  Academy. 

The  Consular  and  Diplomatic  Bill  remains  about  the  same.  It 
represents  the  steady  and  even  growth  of  our  foreign  relations. 

Putting  all  these  items  of  decrease  together,  I  am  enabled  to 


REVENUES  AND   EXPENDITURES.  123 

figure  up  a  reduction  of  $34,300,000  below  the  gross  estimates 
which  I  have  already  presented.  A  large  portion  of  this  re 
duction  was  proposed  by  the  heads  of  the  departments  in  their 
revised  estimates.  The  reduction  here  proposed  is  a  reduction 
of  items  set  down  in  the  Book  of  Estimates.  That  is,  it  is  a 
reduction  from  the  three  hundred  and  nineteen  millions.  It 
remains  to  be  considered  how  much  we  shall  be  able  to  reduce 
the  estimates  which  come  to  us  in  addition  to  those  found  in  the 
Book  of  Estimates.  Probably  we  shall  not  be  able  to  make  a 
large  reduction  on  the  deficiencies  asked  for,  for  as  they  now 
stand  they  are  much  smaller  than  the  average  deficiencies 
granted  within  the  last  eight  years.  What  Congress  will  do  in 
reference  to  the  Centennial  Exposition  and  in  reference  to  the 
estimates  for  the  Board  of  Public  Works,  and  how  much  will  be 
appropriated  in  the  form  of  relief  bills,  claim  bills,  and  pension 
bills,  members  of  the  House  can  estimate  as  well  as  I.  These 
things  ought  to  be  fairly  considered  by  the  House,  and  deter 
mined  on  their  merits.  It  is  therefore  impossible  to  say  what 
figure  will  represent  the  ultimate  amount  of  reduction.  But  I 
believe  I  am  reasonably  safe  in  saying  that  we  can  reduce  the 
expenditures,  exclusive  of  the  sinking  fund,  to  $270,000,000 
for  next  year,  provided  the  House  sustain  the  Committee  on 
Appropriations  as  they  have  done  in  the  bills  already  reported. 
It  will  be  observed,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  I  have  everywhere 
counted  in  the  sinking  fund  as  one  of  the  expenditures  which 
we  are  bound  by  every  obligation  of  good  faith  and  wise 
policy  to  meet.  It  is  unfortunate  that  no  separate  account 
of  the  sinking  fund  was  kept  until  1869-70,  although  large 
amounts  of  the  principal  of  the  public  debt  had  been  paid  off 
before  that  time.  For  the  last  four  years  we  have  kept  that 
account  separate,  and  now  it  is  included  in  the  regular  esti 
mates.  The  sinking  fund  is  the  sacred  symbol  and  shield  of 
the  public  faith.  It  is  a  perpetual  memorial  to  the  world  that 
we  are  paying  our  public  debt.  I  would  far  sooner  levy 
additional  taxes  than  see  the  sinking  fund  neglected.  When, 
therefore,  I  say  I  believe  it  possible  to  reduce  expenditures 
for  the  next  year  to  $270,000,000,  exclusive  of  the  sinking  fund, 
I  mean  to  say  that  I  regard  it  as  the  unquestioned  duty  of 
Congress  to  provide  for  $300,000,000  to  meet  our  aggregate 
expenditures,  including  the  sinking  fund  and  the  interest  on  the 
public  debt. 


I24  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  desire,  in  concluding  my  remarks  upon 
this  bill,  to  call  attention  to  two  or  three  points.  I  cordially 
concur  with  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts 1  in  all  his  aspi 
rations  for  retrenchment.  But  it  is  important  that  propositions 
for  retrenchment  be  put  into  the  form  of  legislation. 

There  were  several  leading  points  in  which  the  gentleman 
recommended  retrenchment  and  reform.  In  the  first  place,  he 
alluded  to  the  necessity  of  doing  away  with  our  permanent 
appropriations  as  far  as  possible.  In  that  he  has  the  cordial 
support  of  the  Committee  on  Appropriations ;  for  on  the  26th 
of  January,  in  obedience  to  the  directions  of  the  Committee 
on  Appropriations,  I  introduced  into  the  House  two  resolu 
tions,  of  which  one  was  an  order  to  report  in  this  bill  now 
pending  a  proposition  to  repeal  the  law  which  makes  per 
manent  appropriations  for  the  expenses  of  the  national  loan, 
and  to  make  it  a  subject  of  annual  appropriation.  And  the 
other  empowered  and  directed  the  Committee  of  Ways  and 
Means  to  undertake  a  like  work  in  reference  to  the  laws  for 
collecting  customs.  The  system  by  which  we  provide  for  the 
expense  of  collecting  customs  is  an  old  one,  born  with  the 
government,  and  has  been  subject  to  constant  abuses.  It 
needs,  as  it  has  needed  for  many  years,  thorough  revision; 
and  no  committee  is  so  well  qualified  to  make  that  revision 
as  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means.  They  are  familiar 
with  our  customs  laws,  and  can  best  determine  how  the  needed 
reform  can  be  accomplished. 

The  Committee  on  Appropriations  have  given  at  least  two 
full  weeks  of  work  to  the  subject  of  the  expenses  of  national 
loans,  and  have  provided  in  this  bill  for  repealing  all  laws  that 
make  permanent  appropriations  for  those  expenses.  If  the 
committee  will  indulge  me,  I  will  state  what  was  the  peculiar 
difficulty  in  that  case. 

During  the  war,  when  a  great  loan  was  issued,  there  was 
added  to  the  act  authorizing  it  a  clause  that  a  certain  sum  or  a 
certain  per  cent  of  this  particular  loan  should  be  used  to  pay 
for  the  expenses  of  negotiating  it  and  printing  the  bonds.  But 
in  1872  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  brought  in  a 
bill,  which  passed  without  debate,  making  a  permanent  appro 
priation  of  one  per  cent  of  all  notes,  bonds,  and  fractional  cur 
rency  issued  or  reissued  in  any  one  year  as  the  expense  of 

1  Mr.  Dawes. 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  125 

the  national  loan.  And  during  the  past  year  there  was  nearly 
five  hundred  millions  of  such  paper  printed  and  issued  at 
the  Treasury  Department,  making  thus  an  annual  appropri 
ation,  without  the  revision  of  Congress,  of  nearly  $5,000,000, 
which  the  Secretary  could  use  at  his  discretion.  Out  of  the 
appropriations  for  the  expenses  of  the  national  loan  has  grown 
up  the  Bureau  of  Engraving  and  Printing,  with  its  twelve  hun 
dred  employees.  There  are  to-day  twelve  hundred  persons 
employed  in  that  Bureau,  and  not  only  the  number  of  em 
ployees,  but  their  salaries,  are  regulated  by  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury.  And  besides  that,  in  four  of  the  offices  of  the 
Treasury  Department  there  are  five  hundred  extra  clerks  and 
employees  whose  salaries  are  not  provided  for  in  our  annual 
bills,  but  are  paid  out  of  this  permanent  appropriation  for  the 
national  loan,  according  to  the  discretion  of  the  Secretary. 
What  is  more,  the  number  of  these  clerks  is  also  subject  to 
his  discretion.  We  have  undertaken  to  sweep  this  law  away, 
and  fix  the  number  of  clerks  and  employees,  and  make  an 
annual  appropriation  based  on  the  annual  estimates.  We  have 
largely  reduced  the  appropriation.  Last  year  the  cost  of  col 
lecting  the  customs  was  unusually  large,  and  it  was  paid  under 
a  permanent  appropriation.  It  ought  not  to  be  so,  and  we 
hope  that  before  this  bill  is  through  the  House  the  Com 
mittee  of  Ways  and  Means  may  devise  a  scheme  by  which  we 
may  regulate  the  cost  of  collecting  our  revenues  from  cus 
toms,  as  we  have«done  for  the  loans. 

The  most  difficult  thing  we  have  encountered  is  the  very 
great  expense  of  public  works ;  and  here,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  may 
say  that  I  am  not  hostile  to  our  public  works,  but  rather  am 
proud  of  them,  as  far  as  they  are  necessary  to  the  public  ser 
vice.  They  belong  to  that  class  of  our  expenditures  that  should 
be  called  investments  for  the  comfort,  convenience,  and  growth 
of  the  nation.  The  greatest  of  these  expenditures  is  on  our 
rivers  and  harbors,  and  I  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  fifteen 
of  the  last  thirty-four  years  not  a  dollar  was  appropriated  for 
rivers  and  harbors  in  the  United  States.  Our  friends  on  the 
other  side  of  the  House,  when  they  were  in  power,  believed  the 
doctrine  that  Congress  has  no  right  to  make  internal  improve 
ments  ;  and  for  fifteen  of  their  years  of  power,  our  docks  and 
piers  were  rotting,  and  our  harbors  were  filling  up,  because  the 
theory  of  no-improvements  left  them  to  perish.  More  than 


126  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

seventy-five  per  cent  of  all  that  has  ever  been  appropriated  to 
open  our  rivers,  and  clear  out  our  harbors,  and  make  a  highway 
for  commerce  on  our  coasts  and  upon  our  inland  lakes  and  riv 
ers,  has  been  appropriated  since  the  war  by  the  party  now  in 
power.  I  name  these  works  only  to  praise  them.  They  are  car 
ried  on  under  the  War  Department,  and  no  man,  I  believe,  has 
charged  corruption  in  the  expenditure  of  the  money.  But  it  is 
one  of  that  class  of  expenditures  that  can  in  part  be  postponed, 
that  need  not  be  done  in  a  year.  It  is  well  that  enough  has* 
been  done  to  make  it  possible  for  us  to  open  our  internal  ave 
nues  of  commerce  as  the  growth  of  trade  requires. 

Another  branch  of  our  public  service,  which  no  man  can 
think  of  without  being  proud  of  it,  is  our  light-house  system. 
I  look  upon  it  as  one  of  the  wonders  of  our  early  history,  that, 
in  the  first  three  months  of  the  life  of  the  First  Congress,  our 
fathers  struck  out  a  new  line,  unknown  in  the  history  of  legisla 
tion,  when  they  declared  in  one  simple  act  that  the  light  which 
gleamed  from  every  Pharos  on  our  shores  should  be  free  to 
the  ships  and  sailors  of  all  nations.  Until  recently,  the  United 
States  has  stood  absolutely  alone  among  nations  in  allowing  the 
whole  world  to  have  the  benefit  of  its  lights  without  charge. 
I  always  feel  a  keen  sense  of  satisfaction  when  I  am  permitted 
to  aid  in  making  appropriations  to  keep  these  lights  burning  on 
our  shores.  The  life-saving  stations  which  have  been  added 
are  expenses  of  the  same  character.  I  would  do  nothing  to 
cripple  these  great  interests. 

One  branch  of  our  public  works  I  think  we  have  overdone, — 
at  least  we  have  been  going  faster  in  it  than  we  ought  to 
go ;  and  that  is  our  public  buildings,  —  our  post-offices,  court 
houses,  and  official  buildings  of  that  sort.  But  there  has  been 
a  demand  all  over  the  country  for  their  increase,  —  a  demand 
which  sometimes  the  committees  of  this  House  have  not  been 
able  to  resist.  I  remember  how  greatly  the  distinguished  chair 
man  of  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  in  1871  l  was  pressed 
with  these  demands.  I  remember  that,  on  the  2;th  of  Feb 
ruary  of  that  year,  he  brought  in  his  Sundry  Civil  Appropri 
ation  Bill,  and  himself,  by  direction  of  his  committee,  moved 
to  suspend  the  rules  to  make  it  in  order  to  put  into  the  bill 
fifteen  buildings  never  before  authorized.  I  remember  that 
they  were  put  into  the  bill  under  a  suspension  of  the  rules. 

1  Mr.  Dawes. 


REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES.  127 

But  amendments  for  still  other  buildings  were  added  in  the 
House,  until  the  bill  sank  under  their  weight,  and  was  laid  on 
the  table  on  the  motion  of  the  distinguished  gentleman  from 
Indiana.1  Although  that  bill  was  once  defeated,  it  was  after 
wards  reconsidered  and  passed,  with  several  of  the  new  build 
ings  stricken  out.  Yet  they  were  left  as  a  legacy  to  subsequent 
years.  I  allude  to  this  to  show  what  a  pressure  there  has  been 
on  all  committees  on  appropriations  for  increasing  the  expendi 
tures  on  the  public  works. 

The  Forty-first  Congress  authorized  sixteen  new  buildings  in 
addition  to  those  then  in  progress,  and  it  was  mainly  because  of 
that  large  increase  in  the  buildings  authorized  that  the  expendi 
tures  for  1873  were  increased  over  those  of  1872.  During  the 
Forty-second  Congress  fourteen  new  buildings  were  authorized, 
most  of  them  the  buildings  that  had  been  inserted  in  the  Mis 
cellaneous  Bill  of  1871,  and  then  thrown  out  before  that  bill 
became  a  law.  I  know  how  strong  the  pressure  is  to  increase 
the  number  and  size  of  public  buildings,  but  I  hope  the  House 
will  not  appropriate  any  more  money  the  coming  year  for 
works  not  already  begun.  This  is  good  economy;  first,  be 
cause  our  whole  force  in  the  architect's  office  are  engaged  to 
the  top  of  their  ability  on  works  now  in  progress ;  and,  second, 
because  we  really  cannot  afford  to  do  all  the  work  on  buildings 
which  are  fairly  begun.  Let  the  seventeen  untouched  buildings 
wait  for  a  year,  and  then  come  in  one  by  one,  as  the  old  ones 
are  finished.  We  will  go  on  with  the  work  already  in  progress. 
We  are  erecting  buildings  which  are  worthy  of  the  country. 
By  these,  and  by  our  other  internal  improvements,  we  will  make 
for  this  great  nation  a  beautiful  body,  in  which  its  great  soul  may 
dwell.  But  let  us  make  it  slowly ;  let  us  make  it  carefully ;  let 
us  make  it  wisely. 

And  now,  Mr.  Chairman,  from  this  review  of  the  facts  in  the 
case,  I  am  warranted  in  the  assertion  that,  if  the  House  will 
pursue  the  course  which  I  have  indicated,  we  shall  pass  through 
the  present  and  the  coming  fiscal  year  without  crippling  any  of 
the  necessary  expenditures  of  the  government,  without  aban 
doning  any  great  and  important  public  work  already  begun, 
and  neither  encounter  a  deficit  nor  bring  the  Treasury  to  pro 
test  or  the  public  credit  to  shame.  I  believe  that  with  the  re 
vival  of  business,  —  which  the  gentleman  from  New  York2 

1  Mr.  Holman.  2  Mr.  Roberts. 


128  REVENUES  AND  EXPENDITURES. 

shows  has  increased  the  revenues  $8,000,000  more  than  was 
estimated  up  to  the  beginning  of  this  month,  —  and  with  the 
restoration  of  public  confidence,  we  shall  be  enabled  to  get 
through  this  year  and  the  next  without  additional  taxation ; 
but  if,  at  the  end  of  our  efforts  to  limit  expenditures  on  the 
basis  indicated,  we  find  it  necessary  to  impose  a  new  tax,  I 
have  no  doubt  that  Congress  will  stand  up  to  its  duty,  and  re 
store  where  it  has  cut  too  deeply  into  the  revenues.  I  do  not 
believe  it  will  be  necessary  to  increase  the  taxes.  I  believe  we 
shall  come  through  with  no  deficit,  but  with  a  reasonable  sur 
plus  for  the  future. 

Thanking  the  committee  for   the  very  kind  attention  with 
which  they  have  honored  me,  I  will  relieve  their  patience. 


APPROPRIATIONS  FOR  THE  FISCAL  YEAR 

ENDING  JUNE  30,  1875. 

SPEECH  DELIVERED   IN   THE   HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 

JUNE  23,  1874. 


ON  the  last  day  of  the  session  of  1873-74,  Mr.  Garfield  reviewed 
the  legislation  of  the  session  from  the  standpoint  of  his  position,  that  of 
chairman  of  the  House  Committee  on  Appropriations,  in  the  following 
speech. 


MR.  SPEAKER,  —  I  was  entitled  to  an  hour  this  morning, 
if  I  had  chosen  to  use  it,  pending  the  conference  report 
on  the  Sundry  Civil  Appropriation  Bill.  But  it  was  so  important 
that  the  bill  should  go  at  once  to  the  engrossing  clerks  that  I 
occupied  no  time  in  general  debate,  but  said  I  should  ask  the 
indulgence  of  the  House  later  in  the  day,  for  no  political  speech, 
as  my  friends  across  the  way  seem  to  apprehend,  but  simply  for 
the  purpose  of  making,  as  far  as  I  can  and  as  accurately  as  pos 
sible,  a  summary  of  what  has  been  done  this  session  in  regard  to 
public  expenditures.  I  therefore  avail  myself  of  the  courtesy 
of  the  gentleman  from  Kansas,1  to  state  what  has  been  done  in 
the  way  of  appropriations. 

Gentlemen  will  remember  that  when  the  Legislative  Appro 
priation  Bill  was  called  up  for  action  on  the  5th  of  March,  I 
spoke  somewhat  at  length  upon  the  general  subject  of  revenues 
and  expenditures,  and  indicated  the  leading  features  of  the  bills 
which  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  would  recommend  to 

1  Mr.  Cobb,  who  had  moved  a  reconsideration  of  the  vote  by  which  the  confer 
ence  report  on  the  Tariff  Bill  was  rejected,  and  then  yielded  the  floor  to  Mr. 
Garfield. 

VOL.    II.  Q 


1 30  APPROPRIATIONS  FOR   1875. 

the  House,  and  what  we  believed  would  be  possible  in  the  way 
of  reducing  the  expenditures  for  the  next  fiscal  year.  The 
reductions  then  suggested  were  of  two  kinds :  first,  the  actual 
mustering  out  of  expenditures  by  the  repeal  or  scaling  down  of 
laws  authorizing  and  requiring  payments  from  the  Treasury; 
and  second,  the  postponement  of  items  of  expenditure  which, 
though  ultimately  necessary,  could,  without  serious  detriment  to 
the  public  service,  be  deferred  until  the  pressure  on  the  Treas 
ury  had  passed.  It  was  of  great  importance  that  we  should  be 
able  to  tide  over  the  present  and  the  next  fiscal  years  without 
additional  taxation,  and  for  the  time  being  the  postponement  of 
an  expense  was  almost  as  important  as  a  permanent  reduction. 
In  that  speech  I  expressed  the  belief  that  by  postponing  some 
expenses  and  abolishing  others  we  could  reduce  the  appropria 
tions  for  the  next  fiscal  year  about  $34,000,000  below  the  esti 
mates  of  the  several  departments,  and  that  we  could  thus  reduce 
the  expenditures  to  an  aggregate  of  $270,000,000,  exclusive  of 
the  sinking  fund.  We  have  now  reached  the  end  of  the  ses 
sion,  and  it  is  worth  while  to  see  how  far  the  expectations  of 
four  months  ago  have  been  realized. 

I  presume  that  not  all  gentlemen  have  thought  sufficiently  upon 
this  subject  to  appreciate  the  difficulty  of  scaling  down  without 
injuring  the  efficiency  of  so  vast  and  complicated  a  machine  as 
the  government  of  the  United  States.  It  is  a  vast  Colossus, 
whose  every  motion  depends  upon  the  expenditure  of  money, — 
a  vast  machine,  the  motive  power  of  which  is  money ;  and  the 
appropriations  made  by  Congress  determine  and  limit  the  activ 
ity  of  every  function  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  I  say  that 
few  people  have  considered  how  difficult  it  is  to  take  such  an 
organization  and  scale  it  down  about  ten  per  cent,  and  still  pre 
serve  its  necessary  working  force  unimpaired.  We  might  by  an 
unwise  reduction  cripple  some  one  function,  and  thus  block  the 
operations  of  a  whole  department,  but  I  believe  that  this  Con 
gress  has  made  its  reductions  so  carefully  that  no  serious  injury 
will  follow. 

Before  stating  the  amounts  appropriated  by  the  several  bills  I 
will  point  out  some  of  the  measures  of  legislation  that  have 
been  incorporated  into  these  bills  for  the  purpose  of  reforming 
%the  laws  which  regulate  the  expenditures  of  public  money. 

In  the  first  place,  we  have  endeavored  to  take  a  further  step 
in  the  direction  in  which  Congress  has  been  moving  for  several 


APPROPRIATIONS  FOR   1875.  131 

years  past,  —  I  mean  the  effort  to  bring  all  expenditures,  as  far 
as  possible,  directly  under  the  eye  of  Congress.  We  have 
transferred  several  important  items  of  expenditure  from  the  per 
manent  appropriations,  over  which  Congress  has  no  immediate 
supervision,  to  the  annual  appropriation  bills.  This  has  neces 
sarily  swollen  the  annual  bills,  but  it  has  brought  those  expendi 
tures,  where  they  ought  to  have  been  brought  long  ago,  under 
the  immediate  eye  of  the  people  through  their  representatives  in 
Congress. 

There  is  no  hope  of  insuring  careful  economy  in  expenditures 
without  specific  provision,  declaring  the  object  of  an  appropria 
tion  and  limiting  the  amount  to  be  expended.  In  the  present 
session  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  have  proposed  sev 
eral  improvements  which  have  been  cordially  indorsed  by  the 
House,  and  which  I  think  will  prove  to  be  of  very  considerable 
service  to  the  government.  As  an  instance  of  this  I  refer  to 
the  expenses  of  the  national  loan,  which  amounted  to  $3,806,000 
last  year.  That  amount  was  expended  in  maintaining  the 
Bureau  of  Engraving  and  Printing,  and  in  the  employment 
of  several  hundred  clerks  and  other  employees,  and  both  their 
number  and  pay  were  left  wholly  to  the  discretion  of  the  Sec 
retary  of  the  Treasury.  It  is  too  great  a  discretion  to  put  in 
the  hands  of  any  one  man  in  the  ordinary  work  of  the  govern 
ment.  It  enabled  him  to  employ,  and  he  had  in  his  employ 
ment  when  this  session  commenced,  not  less  than  eighteen 
hundred  people,  paying  them  from  $5,000  a  year  down  to 
seventy-five  cents  a  day  at  his  discretion.  I  think  that  upon 
the  whole  the  work  was  reasonably  well  done ;  I  do  not  think 
there  was  corruption  or  misuse  of  government  funds ;  but  it 
was  an  extravagant  method  of  conducting  the  public  business. 
All  that  has  been  swept  away  by  an  amendment  to  the  legisla 
tive  bill.  All  the  money  now  appropriated  for  this  service  is 
in  specific  sums,  and  in  every  case,  except  as  to  the  number  of 
employees  in  the  Printing  Bureau  of  the  Treasury,  a  definite 
number  of  persons  are  to  be  employed  and  their  salaries  are 
fixed.  In  doing  this  we  have  made  a  reduction  of  $500,000  in 
that  one  item  alone;  but  of 'course  the  effect  of  this  change  is 
to  swell  the  annual  appropriation  bills  about  $3,250,000  above 
what  they  would  have  been  but  for  the  adoption  of  this  reform, 
though  it  correspondingly  reduces  the  amount  to  be  expended 
under  the  head  of  permanent  appropriations. 


132  APPROPRIATIONS  FOR    1875. 

A  similar  reform  has  been  made  by  the  aid  of  the  Committee 
on  Military  Affairs  and  the  Committee  on  Civil  Service  Reform 
in  regard  to  the  employment  of  soldiers  as  clerks  in  the  War 
Department.  By  the  provisions  of  laws  passed  during  the  war 
and  soon  after  its  close  many  hundreds  of  enlisted  men  were 
detailed  for  duty  as  clerks  and  messengers  in  that  department, 
receiving  extra  compensation  for  rations  and  quarters,  which 
raised  their  pay  to  about  $1,000  a  year,  while  they  were  in  fact 
soldiers  of  the  army  at  the  rate  of  thirteen  dollars  per  month. 
All  that  has  been  swept  away.  We  have  made  appropriations 
for  the  employment  of  these  persons  at  a  fixed  salary,  and  have 
limited  the  number  to  be  employed.  The  effect  of  this  is  to 
swell  the  amount  appropriated  by  that  bill  nearly  half  a  million 
dollars ;  but  it  reduces  the  permanent  appropriation  by  consid 
erably  more  than  that  amount,  and  it  has  mustered  out  a  large 
number  of  persons  who  were  thus  employed,  and  has  made  the 
force  of  civil  employees  a  fixed  and  definite  number. 

In  this  connection,  also,  I  will  mention  another  feature  of  the 
appropriation  bills  of  this  session,  which  I  think  will  everywhere 
be  recognized  as  an  improvement  on  the  old  method.  Hitherto 
it  has  been  the  custom  to  appropriate  contingent  funds  in  the 
lump  for  the  several  departments.  But  this  year  the  Committee 
on  Appropriations  have  brought  all  the  contingent  funds  down 
to  items.  For  example,  instead  of  appropriating  $350,000  for 
contingencies  in  the  Treasury  Department,  we  have  separated 
it  into  all  the  various  items ;  they  cover  several  closely  printed 
pages  of  the  law  as  it  now  stands,  and  state  definitely  so  much 
for  rent,  so  much  for  fuel,  so  much  for  lights,  so  much  for  the 
other  items,  leaving  an  actual  contingent  fund  of  only  some 
$25,000  to  meet  expenses  that  could  not  be  enumerated.  That 
plan  has  been  carried  through  all  the  appropriation  bills,  and  I 
believe  in  so  doing  we  have  done  a  good  service  in  limiting  the 
expenses  of  the  government. 

When  I  addressed  the  House  in  March  last,  I  presented  a 
detailed  statement  of  expenditures  of  the  last  fiscal  year,  so 
grouped  and  exhibited  as  to  show  what  portion  of  the  expendi 
tures  were  directly  in  consequence  of  the  war,  and  what  were 
employed  in  carrying  on  the  ordinary  functions  of  the  govern 
ment.  With  the  leave  of  the  House- 1  will  here  restate  that 
analysis,  because  it  forms  the  basis  of  all  the  reduction  we  have 
attempted  to  make  for  the  next  fiscal  year. 


APPROPRIATIONS  FOR   1875.  133 

[This  analysis,  with  the  comments  upon  it,  is  found  in  the  Speech 
on  "Revenues  and  Expenditures,"  delivered  March  5,  I874.1] 

I  then  suggested  the  different  items  on  which  reduction  could 
safely  be  made,  and  expressed  the  belief  that  the  appropria 
tions  for  the  next  fiscal  year  could  be  reduced  by  the  sum  of 
$34,000,000  below  the  estimates  made  by  the  several  depart 
ments,  and  from  $20,000,000  to  $25,000,000  below  the  actual 
appropriations  of  last  year.  An  examination  of  the  situation 
as  it  then  existed,  March  5,  led  to  the  following  conclusion:  — 

"  And  now,  Mr.  Chairman,  from  this  review  of  the  facts  in  the  case,  I 
am  warranted  in  the  assertion  that,  if  the  House  will  pursue  the  course 
which  I  have  indicated,  we  shall  pass  through  the  present  and  the  coming 
fiscal  year  without  crippling  any  of  the  necessary  expenditures  of  the 
government,  without  abandoning  any  great  and  important  public  work 
already  begun,  and  neither  encounter  a  deficit  nor  bring  the  Treasury 
to  protest  or  the  public  credit  to  shame.  I  believe  that  with  the  revival 
of  business  ....  and  with  the  restoration  of  public  confidence  we 
shall  be  enabled  to  get  through  this  year  and  the  next  without  additional 
taxation." 

In  this  connection  I  call  the  attention  of  the  House  to  one 
element  that  all  will  admit  enters  largely  into  the  problem  of 
public  expenditures. 

Gentlemen  sometimes  say  that  the  aggregate  expenditures 
of  the  government  during  its  first  fifty  years  were  no  more 
than  they  are  now  for  one  year.  That  is  a  striking,  and  to 
some  a  startling  statement.  But  I  call  the  attention  of  the 
House  to  the  growth  of  the  country,  to  the  area  of  square 
miles  at  four  or  five  different  periods  of  our  history.  When 
the  Constitution  was  adopted,  we  had,  under  the  treaty  of 
peace  of  1783  with  Great  Britain,  an  area  of  827,844  square 
miles.  In  1803,  by  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana,  we  more  than 
doubled  the  amount  of  our  territory  by  enlarging  it  to  the 
amount  of  1,999,775  square  miles.  Forty-five  years  later,  in 
1848,  by  the  annexation  of  Texas  and  our  acquisitions  from 
Mexico,  we  reached  2,980,959  square  miles.  To-day  we  have 
3,603,884  square  miles  of  territory,  being  more  than  five  times 
the  area  of  the  territory  we  had  when  the  Constitution  went  into 
operation.  Now  these  increments  of  growth  have  not  been 
mere  additions  of  territory;  they  have  been  accompanied  by 
the  creation  of  new  States  and  Territories,  at  a  rate  even  more 

1  See  ante,  pp.  115-118. 


134 


APPROPRIATIONS  FOR    1875, 


rapid  than  the  growth  of  our  area  in  square  miles.  Of  course 
every  new  State  and  Territory  has  added  to  the  expenditure  of 
the  government. 

I  will  detain  the  House  no  longer  except  to  call  attention  to 
the  appropriations  made  at  the  present  session.  Making  a 
comparison  between  law  and  law,  not  between  estimates  and 
appropriations,  I  present  a  table  which  exhibits  the  appropria 
tions  of  the  fiscal  year  now  closing,  and  the  corresponding 
appropriations  for  the  one  to  come :  — 

Twelve  regular  Appropriation  Bills  for  the  Years  1874  and  1875. 


Title  of  Bill. 

For  fiscal  year 
ending 
June  30,  1874. 

For  fiscal  year 
ending 
June  30,  1875. 

Increase. 

Decrease. 

Navy  

$22,276,257.65 

$16,818,946.20 

$5,457,311.45 

Army  

31,796,008.81 

27,788,500.00 

4,007,508.81 

Fortification  

I.SQQ.OOO.OO 

904,000.00 

99=5,000.00 

Legislative,  Executive,  and  Ju- 

21  y?1?  6^  86 

20  613  880  So 

•7  I-JQ  7;''?  06 

Indian  

5,541,418.90 

c;,6s6,i  71.00 

$114,752.10 

TTQ  8"K  OO 

4  482  ;6 

12  07o  4.l8  60 

Post-Office 

e  4Q7  842  OO 

101  240  oo 

Pension 

5OO  OOO  OO 

Sundry  Civil 

32  186  129  09 

26  So?   ?4S  2C 

tr  -5QO  cS",  84 

River  and  Harbor 

5218  ooo  oo 

884  900  oo 

Total  decrease  .... 

26,844,006.96 

By  glancing  over  this  table,  gentlemen  will  see  in  what  bills 
the  reductions  of  appropriations  have  been  made. 

In  the  Naval  Bill  the  reduction  amounts  to  nearly  $5,500,000 ; 
part  of  this  reduction  arises  from  the  fact  that  we  have  reduced 
the  rank  and  file  of  the  navy,  and  also  reduced  the  enlisted 
force  of  the  Marine  Corps  twenty  per  cent ;  and  part  of  it  arises 
from  the  fact  that  last  year  we  made  a  large  appropriation  —  a 
little  more  than  $3,000,000  —  for  building  new  sloops  of  war, 
which  does  not  reappear  in  the  bill  for  this  year.  The  appropri 
ations  for  the  army  are  reduced  a  little  more  than  $4,000,000. 
This  was  made  possible  mainly  by  the  fact  that  we  provided  for 
the  reduction  of  the  enlisted  men  of  the  army  by  the  number 
of  five  thousand.  The  Fortification  Bill  shows  a  reduction  of 
very  nearly  $1,000,000,  and  is  an  example  of  a  public  expendi 
ture  that  can  be  postponed  without  detriment  to  the  public 
service.  The  Legislative  Appropriation  Bill  shows  a  reduction 
of  a  little  more  than  $3,000,000  from  the  corresponding  ap- 


APPROPRIATIONS  FOR   1875.  135 

propriations  of  last  year.  The  reduction  would  have  been 
$6,000,000  but  for  the  fact  that  there  has  been  placed  in  this 
bill  more  than  $3,000,000  which  formerly  was  expended  under 
the  head  of  Permanent  Appropriations  for  the  National  Loan. 
The  reduction  has  been  effected  mainly  by  the  repeal  of  the 
Salary  Bill,  which  alone  made  a  reduction  of  $1,000,000,  by 
reducing  the  force  in  the  various  departments  of  the  civil  ser 
vice,  and  by  reducing  contingent  expenses.  The  Indian  Appro 
priation  Bill  shows  a  small  increase  over  that  of  last  year ;  but 
it  should  be  remarked  that  a  large  portion  of  our  deficiencies 
have  been  for  the  Indian  service  of  the  current  year.  The 
appropriations  for  the  Military  Academy  are  nearly  the  same 
as  those  of  the  current  year,  although  the  number  of  cadets 
has  been  increased  -forty-nine.  The  Deficiency  Bill  of  this  year 
appropriates  nearly  $9,000,000  less  than  the  deficiency  bills  of 
last  year.  The  appropriations  from  the  Treasury  for  postal 
service  are  about  $100,000  greater  than  the  amount  for  last 
year.  It  will  be  noticed  that  I  have  set  down  only  the  amount 
appropriated  out  of  the  Treasury.  The  revenues  of  that  De 
partment  are  not  covered  into  the  Treasury,  but  are  expended 
directly  for  the  service  by  the  Department  itself.  The  total  ex 
penditures  of  that  Department  will  be  over  $2,000,000  greater 
for  the  next  fiscal  year  than  for  the  current  year.  But  the  in 
crease  of  the  rates  of  postage  provided  for  in  the  bill  will,  it  is 
estimated,  produce  about  $2,000,000  qf  additional  revenue.  The 
Consular  and  Diplomatic  Bill  appropriates  about  the  ordinary 
amount  for  consular  and  diplomatic  service ;  but  there  has  been 
added  this  year  nearly  $2,000,000  to  that  bill  as  the  amount 
required  to  pay  the  award  of  the  mixed  British  and  American 
commission  under  the  treaty  of  Washington.  The  Pension  Bill 
this  year  is  half  a  million  dollars  less  than  the  Pension  Bill  of  last 
year.  But  the  legislation  of  the  session  in  regard  to  pension 
laws  leads  me  to  believe  that  we  shall  have  to  appropriate  next 
year  for  a  deficiency  large  enough  to  bring  up  the  appropria 
tion  to  what  it  was  last  year.  Had  I  known  when  the  Pension 
Bill  was  under  consideration  what  I  know  now  about  the  ex 
penses  of  the  Pension  Bureau,  I  should  have  insisted  upon 
keeping  the  amount  the  same  as  last  year.  You  may  there 
fore  expect  next  year  half  a  million  for  deficiencies  in  the  Pen 
sion  Bureau.  The  Sundry  Civil  Bill  shows  a  reduction  of 
$5,290,000  from  that  of  the  corresponding  bill  of  last  year. 


I36  APPROPRIATIONS  FOR   1875. 

This  arises  in  the  main  from  a  reduction  in  the  amounts  appro 
priated  for  public  buildings ;  but  the  bill  of  this  year  has  been 
increased  by  an  appropriation  of  $400,000  to  aid  the  sufferers 
by  the  overflow  of  Southern  rivers.  The  River  and  Harbor  Bill 
of  this  year  shows  a  decrease  of  $885,000  below  that  of  last 
year,  and  this  although  about  $200,000  is  added  for  general 
surveys  in  connection  with  schemes  of  cheap  transportation 
between  the  East  and  the  West,  —  an  appropriation  which  is 
no  part  of  the  River  and  Harbor  Appropriation  Bill  proper. 

Summing  up  the  results  of  the  table  here  presented,  the 
aggregate  appropriations  made  in  the  twelve  regular  appro 
priation  bills  is  $26,844,006.96  less  than  the  amounts  appropri 
ated  in  the  corresponding  bills  last  year. 

I  have  not  taken  into  account  in  this  statement  the  $4,000,000 
appropriated  in  what  is  known  as  the  "  Naval  Emergency 
Bill " ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  I  have  more  than  balanced  this 
$4,000,000  by  including  in  these  bills  the  appropriations  for 
expenses  of  the  national  loan,  and  other  similar  appropriations, 
which  have  been  transferred  from  the  list  of  permanent  appro 
priations  to  the  regular  bills.  Nor  have  I  included  in  this  state 
ment  the  amount  appropriated  by  Congress  in  the  form  of 
claim  bills  and  relief  bills.  Though  the  number  of  private  bills 
which  have  passed  at  this  session  is  probably  greater  than  those 
of  the  preceding  year,  yet  I  am  satisfied  that  the  amount  appro 
priated  in  such  bills  is  considerably  less  than  the  appropriations 
of  last  year.  The  appropriations  of  this  class  amounted  last 
year  to  $3,354,842.17.  I  do  not  believe  that  this  year  they  will 
reach  $1,500,000. 

The  summing  up  of  the  amounts  appropriated  in  the  bills 
that  have  passed  within  the  last  day  or  two  has  been  done 
somewhat  hurriedly,  and  I  will  not  vouch  for  the  absolute  cor 
rectness  of  the  figures  here  given ;  but  I  am  satisfied  they  are 
not  far  out  of  the  way.  I  may  safely  affirm  that  the  appropri 
ations  made  at  the  present  session  of  Congress  are  in  the  aggre 
gate  $25,000,000  less  than  those  of  last  year.  I  ought  also  to 
add,  that  in  this  statement  no  account  has  been  taken  of  the 
unexpended  balances  in  either  year. 

I  desire  to  say,  in  conclusion,  for  myself  and  for  my  associates 
on  the  Committee  on  Appropriations,  that  we  feel  under  great 
obligations  to  the  House  fcr  the  confidence  with  which  it  has 
accepted  our  work.  I  have  no  doubt  that  we  have  at  times 


APPROPRIATIONS  FOR   1875.  137 

appeared  to  many  members  unreasonable  in  our  opposition  to 
measures  of  expenditure,  but  the  House  has  generally  shown 
an  unwavering  purpose  to  follow  the  line  of  genuine  economy 
in  its  management  of  public  affairs.  In  this  connection  I  may 
state  (and  I  do  so  in  no  disparaging  or  invidious  spirit)  that 
almost  every  bill  sent  from  this  House  to  the  Senate  has  come 
back  to  us  larger  in  the  amount  of  the  appropriation  than  when 
it  left  us ;  and  in  almost  every  instance,  the  bills  that  have  come 
back  to  the  House  from  a  conference  committee  have  come 
back  with  smaller  amounts  of  appropriation  than  when  they 
were  sent  to  the  committee.  No  conference  committee  on  any 
of  the  appropriation  bills  has  enlarged  the  bill  in  its  charge ; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  nearly  all  such  committees  have  decreased 
the  appropriations.  I  shall  watch  with  deep  interest  the  finan 
cial  history  of  the  next  fiscal  year,  with  some  apprehension  that 
in  some  places  we  have  cut  too  deeply.  But  I  shall  confidently 
expect  to  see  the  expenditures  kept  within  the  aggregate  of  the 
permanent  and  annual  appropriation  bills. 


ON  the  29th  of  July,  1876,  the  House  being  in  the  Committee  on  the 
State  of  the  Union,  Mr.  Garfield  said  :  — 

IN  the  year  1872,  soon  after  I  became  chairman  of  the  Com 
mittee  on  Appropriations,  I  made  an  analysis  of  the  expendi 
tures  of  the  government  from  the  official  records  of  the  Treasury 
Department,  with  a  view  to  classifying  them  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  make  the  various  kinds  of  expenditures  easily  understood. 
I  divided  all  the  expenditures,  exclusive  of  payments  on  the 
principal  of  the  public  debt,  into  three  groups.  The  first  em 
braced  all  those  expenditures  that  grew  directly  out  of  the  war. 
It  did  not  include  the  very  large  incidental  expenses  of  the 
war,  such  as  the  increase  of  the  clerical  force  in  nearly  all  of 
the  departments,  but  included  only  those  items  as  to  which 
there  could  be  no  doubt  that  they  were  occasioned  directly 
by  the  war  itself.  The  second  group  consisted  of  expendi 
tures  for  the  army  and  navy  in  time  of  peace,  but  did  not 
include  those  civil  expenditures  under  the  control  of  the  War 
Department  for  rivers  and  harbors,  and  similar  public  works. 
The  third  group  consisted  of  the  expenditures  for  the  civil 
service  proper. 


138  APPROPRIATIONS  FOR   1875. 

This  analysis  was  continued  year  by  year  down  to  and  includ 
ing  1874.  It  was  continued  at  the  present  session  by  the  gen 
tleman  from  Maine.1  And  now  that  the  fiscal  year  ending  June 
30,  1876,  is  closed,  I  have  obtained  from  the  Treasury  Depart 
ment  a  similar  analysis  for  that  year,  and  present  it  in  the  fol 
lowing  table,  which  also  includes  the  four  years  1873,  1874,  1875, 
and  1876;  being  the  four  years  for  which  appropriations  were 
made  when  I  was  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Appropriations. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  near  the  close  of  the  last  session 
of  the  Forty-third  Congress  I  reviewed  the  appropriations  and 
expenditures  up  to  that  time,  and  expressed  the  opinion  that 
the  work  of  the  four  years  would  show  a  reduction  of  at  least 
$30,000,000  in  the  expenditures  of  the  government  during  that 
period.  But  the  value  of  any  speculative  opinion  can  be  tested 
only  by  time ;  and  the  following  table  speaks  for  itself. 

[He  then  presented  a  comparative  statement  of  expenditures  for  the 
years  ending  June  30,  1873,  lS74?  l875>  an^  1876.  His  analysis  was 
even  more  minute  than  the  analyses  found  in  the  preceding  speeches. 
These  are  the  total  expenditures  by  years  :  — 

First  Groiip. 

1873.  1874.  1875.  1876. 

Amount  paid  directly  on  account  of 

the  war $157,262,415.81  154,171,130.50  147,882,034.75  140,919,679.23 

Percentage  of  the  whole  for  each  year  54.1  53.7  53.8  54.5 

Second  Group. 

Army  and  Navy 53.998,983-25      58,693,305.69      48,314,499-50      47.218,384.66 

Percentage  of  the  whole  for  each  year  18.6  20.4  17.4  18.3 

Third  Groiip. 

Civil  Service  proper 79,083,847.27      74,269,437.57  78,426,858.59  70,321,733.44 

Percentage  of  the  whole  for  each  year               27.3                     25.9  28.8  27.2 

Totals $290,345,246.33     287,133,873.76  274,623,392.84  258,459,797.33 

Mr.  Garfield  then  added  :  — ] 

From  this  official  exhibit  it  will  be  seen  that  the  expendi 
tures,  under  the  first  group,  that  have  grown  directly  out  of 
the  war,  have  been  reduced  from  $157,250,000  to  a  little  less 
than  $141,000,000;  for  the  army  and  navy  proper,  from  near 
$54,000,000  to  a  little  more  than  $47,200,000;  for  the  civil  ser 
vice  proper,  from  $79,000,000  to  $70,321,733;  and  that  the 
aggregate  reduction  of  expenditures  during  that  period  of  four 
years  is  nearly  $32,000,000.  It  will  be  seen  that  54^  per  cent 
of  all  the  expenditures  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1876, 
grew  directly  out  of  the  war. 

1  Mr.  Hale. 


APPROPRIATIONS  FOR    1875.  139 

When  the  current  fiscal  year  shall  have  ended  and  a  similar 
analysis  is  made,  we  can  judge  precisely  the  merit  of  the  work 
of  this  session.  I  shall  not  stint  any  just  praise  due  to  this 
House  for  whatever  good  work  it  has  accomplished  in  that 
direction.  But  much  the  largest  share  of  reductions  that  have 
been  made  in  the  bills  already  passed,  and  those  yet  to  be  acted 
upon  by  the  House,  have  been  postponements  of  necessary 
appropriations,  and  not  an  actual  mustering  out  of  expenditures. 
I  make  this  statement  for  the  purpose  of  doing  justice  to  the 
work  heretofore  done,  and  also  of  laying  the  foundation  of  a 
just  estimate  of  the  appropriations  of  the  present  session. 


EFFECTS  OF  THE  REBELLION  ON  SOUTH 
ERN   LIFE  INSURANCE  CONTRACTS. 


ARGUMENT  MADE  BEFORE  THE  SUPREME  COURT  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES  IN  THE  CASE  OF  W.  E.  TATE  ET  AL., 
HEIRS  OF  SAMUEL  BOND,  v.  THE  NEW  YORK  LIFE  INSU 
RANCE  COMPANY  ET  AL. 

MARCH  17,  1874. 


THE  principal  facts  in  this  case  can  be  inferred  from  Mr.  Garfi eld's 
argument.  As  the  court  were  equally  divided  in  their  opinions,  no 
decision  was  reached,  and  hence  no  trace  of  the  case  appears  in  the 
reports.  The  effect  was  to  confirm  the  decision  of  the  court  below. 


MAY  IT  PLEASE  THE  COURT,  —  The  facts  in  this  case  have 
been  so  fully  and  clearly  stated  by  the  distinguished 
counsel  on  the  other  side,  that  I  need  not  state  them  at  length ; 
but  I  deem  it  important  that,  as  two  cases  are  being  considered 
together,  it  should  be  clearly  understood  in  what  respects  they 
differ  as  to  the  facts.  There  are  several  important  points  of 
difference  between  the  two  cases. 

In  Case  No.  228,1  the  assured  survived  the  war,  and  tendered 
to  the  company  payment  of  his  back  premiums  after  the  war 
was  over.  In  the  case  now  before  your  Honors,  the  assured 
did  not  survive  the  war,  but  died  while  it  was  in  progress,  and 
there  was  no  tender  of  payment  of  premium  after  the  conclu 
sion  of  the  war.  In  case  228  it  is  alleged  that  the  executors  of 
the  assured  had  equitable  claims,  growing  out  of  a  surrender  of 
a  former  policy,  to  the  amount  of  eight  or  nine  hundred  dollars, 
which  should  be  considered  as  a  paid-up  policy  for  that  amount. 
In  this  case  there  is  only  one  policy,  and  the  annual  premiums 

1  The  case  of  The  Mutual  Life  Insurance  Co.  of  New  York  v.  Peter  Hamilton, 
Executor  of  D.  W.  Goodman. 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.       141 

which  had  been  paid  to  keep  it  alive,  to  be  considered.  In  the 
other  case  there  were  dividends  due,  alleged  to  be  sufficient  in 
amount  to  cover  the  premium  of  1861.  That,  I  believe,  was 
denied ;  but  it  was  set  forth  in  the  record,  and  counsel  insisted 
that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  company  to  credit  Goodman  with 
dividends  sufficient  in  amount  to  cover  the  payment  of  premi 
ums  during  the  war.  In  this  case  no  dividends  were  due.  There 
was  an  express  stipulation  in  the  charter  of  the  New  York  Life 
Insurance  Company  that,  when  the  accumulation  of  surplus 
should  reach  $500,000,  and  not  till  then,  dividends  should  be 
declared  by  the  company.  It  did  not  reach  that  sum,  and  the 
company  were  not  bound  to  make  a  dividend  in  1861,  and  as  a 
matter  of  fact  did  not,  to  any  of  their  members. 

There  is  still  another  item  of  difference  which  ought  to  be 
noticed,  and  that  is  in  reference  to  the  status  of  the  parties 
themselves.  It  was  set  forth  in  a  note  appended  to  the  policy 
itself  in  case  228,  that  "  agents  of  the  company  are  authorized 
to  receive  the  premium  when  due."  In  this  case  it  is  a  special 
provision  of  the  charter  of  the  company  that  their  place  of 
business  is  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  not  elsewhere.  I  refer 
your  Honors  to  the  fifteenth  section  of  the  charter,  as  quoted 
in  the  record.  In  further  illustration  of  this  difference  in  the 
two  cases,  I  refer  to  a  note  on  the  margin  of  Dr.  Bond's  pol 
icy,  as  printed  in  the  record,  which  reads  as  follows :  "  All  re 
ceipts  for  premiums  paid  at  agencies  are  to  be  signed  by  the 
President  or  Actuary."  It  results  from  these  facts,  that  no 
agent  is  authorized  to  receive  any  premium  on  a  policy  already 
issued,  until  he  has  received  from  the  home  company  a  receipt 
in  blank,  signed  by  the  President  or  Actuary  of  the  company; 
and  it  is  shown  in  the  testimony,  that  this  was  the  uniform  cus 
tom  of  the  company.  These,  I  believe,  constitute  the  main 
differences  of  fact  in  the  two  cases. 

The  case  now  before  your  Honors  rests  on  these  plain  facts : 
that  the  life  of  Dr.  Bond  was  insured  by  a  contract  with  the 
New  York  Life  Insurance  Company,  made  October  17,  1854; 
that  he  paid  the  annual  premiums  regularly  until  October  17, 
1 86 1,  when,  through  another  person,  he  tendered  the  amount 
of  the  premium  for  that  year  to  Kirtland,  who  had  been  the 
agent  of  the  company  at  Memphis ;  and  that  Kirtland  refused 
to  receive  it,  alleging  that  he  had  no  signed  receipt  giving  him 
authority  from  the  company,  and  that  it  was  impossible  for  him 


142       THE  REBELLION  AND  LTFE  INSURANCE. 

to  transmit  the  money  to  New  York,  even  if  he  had  authority  to 
receive  it.  As  stated,  the  only  authority  Kirtland  ever  had  to 
receive  renewal  premiums  from  assured  persons  was  conferred 
by  the  company's  sending  him  receipts  bearing  the  signature  of 
the  President  or  Actuary  for  that  particular  purpose ;  and  the 
fact  that  he  had  received  no  such  authorization  makes  it  true 
that  he  was  not  the  agent  of  the  company  for  that  purpose  in 
October,  1861. 

THE  COURT.  These  receipts,  I  suppose,  were  ordinarily  sent  to  the 
agent  after  he  had  received  the  money. 

That  is  not  my  understanding  of  the  fact.  It  was  the  uniform 
custom  of  the  company  to  send  blank  receipts  to  their  agents 
before  the  day  of  payment.  . 

THE  COURT.    What  does  the  record  say  about  it  ? 

MR.  CURTIS.  "  All  receipts  for  premiums  paid  at  agencies  are  to  be 
signed  by  the  President  or  Actuary."  That  is  in  the  policy ;  and  they 
were  always  signed  in  anticipation. 

I  refer  your  Honors  also  to  the  place  in  the  record  where  a 
witness,  who  had  been  in  the  employment  of  the  New  York 
Life  for  fifteen  years,  says  that,  during  the  time  of  his  connec 
tion  with  the  company,  no  agent  had  authority  to  collect  pre 
miums  until  he  had  received  receipts  signed  by  the  President 
or  Actuary.  I  refer  your  Honors  also  to  the  testimony  of  the 
President  of  the  company,  which  is  to  the  same  effect.  The 
same  fact  is  embodied  in  the  bill  of  exceptions,  as  part  of  the 
ruling  of  the  court  below. 

THE  COURT.     Is  this  a  bill  in  chancery? 

There  seems  to  have  been  some  doubt  on  that  question  in 
the  minds  of  counsel  in  the  court  below.  But  we  have  the 
opinion  of  the  court,  printed  in  full,  as  a  part  of  the  record. 

To  conclude,  my  statement  of  facts.  On  the  i/th  of  Octo 
ber,  1 86 1,  a  tender  was  made  to  Kirtland,  who  had  been  an 
agent,  and  his  response  was,  that  he  had  received  no  blank  re 
ceipts,  as  he  usually  had  done,  authorizing  him  to  accept  pay 
ment.  The  agent  made  the  further  statement,  that  he  had  no 
means  of  communicating  with  the  home  office,  and  gave  that 
as  a  further  reason  for  not  receiving  the  money.  A  few  months 
later,  the  assured  died  at  his  home,  near  Memphis,  Tennessee, 
within  the  Rebel  lines.  About  two  years  after  his  death  a 


fHIVI 

THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.        143 

demand  was  made  upon  the  company  in  New  York  for  the  pay 
ment  of  the  policy,  less  the  unpaid  premiums.  The  company 
refused,  and  suit  was  brought  to  enforce  payment. 

In  my  judgment,  there  are  but  two  vital  questions  in  this 
cause.  The  first  is,  the  nature  of  the  contract,  and  the  rights 
of  the  parties  under  it;  the  second  is  the  effect  of  the  war  upon 
the  contract.  I  shall  pass  the  first  point  with  the  briefest 
notice,  leaving  its  consideration  to  my  distinguished  colleague. 
I  will  say,  however,  that  we  hold  that  the  payment  of  the 
premiums  required  by  this  contract  cannot  justly  be  called  a 
condition  at  all,  whether  precedent  or  subsequent,  but  is  of  the 
essence  of  the  contract  itself.  I  desire  to  call  the  attention  of 
your  Honors  to  the  peculiar  language  of  this  policy :  "  This  pol 
icy  of  insurance  witnesseth,  that  the  New  York  Life  Insurance 
Company,  in  consideration  of  the  sum  of  $224.50,  to  them  in 
hand  paid  by  Samuel  Bond,  and  of  the  annual  premium  of 
$224.50,  to  be  paid  on  the  i/th  of  October  in  every  year  during 
the  continuance  of  this  policy,  do  assure  the  life  of  Samuel 
Bond,"  etc.  Now,  it  seems  to  us  that  the  payment  of  the  first 
sum  is  no  more  a  part  of  the  essence  of  the  contract  than  the 
payment  of  the  subsequent  sums.  The  payment  of  the  first  sum 
and  of  the  subsequent  sums  is  made  the  fundamental  basis  of  the 
contract.  We  cannot  separate  the  two.  Suppose  the  first  had 
never  been  paid,  could  Dr.  Bond  or  his  executors  have  claimed 
any  payment  from  the  company?  The  first  payment  did  two 
things.  It  bound  the  company  to  pay  $5,000  in  case  Bond  died 
within  the  year ;  and  it  gave  him  the  right  to  renew  the  pol 
icy  at  the  end  of  the  year,  by  paying  the  next  premium.  The 
payment  of  the  second  premium  was  as  vital  to  the  life  of  the 
policy  as  the  payment  of  the  first.  There  follows  in  the  con 
tract,  after  the  usual  stipulations,  a  clear  and  unequivocal  dec 
laration  that  it  is  the  understanding  of  both  parties  that  a  failure 
to  pay  on  the  appointed  day  makes  it  void,  —  that  it  ceases  to 
be  a  contract. 

In  considering  the  effect  of  war  upon  this  contract,  I  will  first 
notice  the  suggestion  of  my  learned  friend  who  has  just  ad 
dressed  your  Honors,  that,  if  Bond  was  in  default,  it  was  because 
the  action  of  the  government  in  reference  to  the  war  made  it 
impossible  for  him  to  perform  his  part  of  the  contract.  He 
quotes  from  a  case  in  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench,  Taylor  v. 
Caldwell,  to  show  that  a  party  is  excused  from  performance  of 


I44       THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

a  contract  where  performance  is  impossible.  That  was  a  case 
where  the  defendant  had  rented  to  the  plaintiff,  for  four  nights, 
a  certain  music  hall  and  gardens  for  concerts.  Before  the  first 
concert  was  given,  the  hall  was  destroyed  by  fire.  The  court 
held  that,  the  existence  of  the  hall  being  necessary  to  the  per 
formance  of  the  contract,  the  defendant  was  excused  for  non- 
performance.  My  friend  read  this  passage  from  the -opinion  of 
the  court:  — 

"  In  contracts  in  which  the  performance  depends  on  the  continued 
existence  of  a  given  person  or  thing,  a  condition  is  implied  that  the  im 
possibility  of  performance  arising  from  the  perishing  of  the  person  or 
thing  shall  excuse  the  performance." 

That  we  may  know  the  reason  for  this  view,  I  read  the  con 
cluding  paragraph  of  the  opinion :  — 

"  In  the  present  case,  looking  at  the  whole  contract,  we  find  that  the 
parties  contracted  on  the  basis  of  the  continued  existence  of  the  Music 
Hall  at  the  time  when  the  concerts  were  to  be  given  ;  that  being  essen 
tial  to  their  performance.  We  think,  therefore,  that  the  Music  Hall 
having  ceased  to  exist,  without  the  fault  of  either  party,  both  parties  are 
excused,  —  the  plaintiffs  from  taking  the  gardens  and  paying  the  money, 
the  defendants  from  performing  their  promise  to  give  the  use  of  the 
Hall  and  gardens  and  other  things."  x 

The  court  construes  the  contract  to  release  both  parties.  I 
submit  that  this  does  not  change  its  terms.  In  this  connection, 
I  cite  the  authority  of  this  court  in  a  case  later  than  the  English 
case  just  referred  to.  In  Dermott  v.  Jones,  Mr.  Justice  Swayne, 
speaking  for  the  court,  says :  — 

"  It  is  a  well-settled  rule  of  law,  that  if  a  party  by  his  contract  charge 
himself  with  an  obligation  possible  to  be  performed,  he  must  make  it 
good,  unless  its  performance  is  rendered  impossible  by  the  act  of  God, 
the  law,  or  the  other  party.  Unforeseen  difficulties,  however  great,  will 
not  excuse  him. 

"  The  application  of  this  principle  to  the  class  of  cases  to  which  the 
one  under  consideration  belongs,  is  equally  well  settled.  If  a  tenant 
agree  to  repair,  and  the  tenement  be  burned  down,  he  is  bound  to  re 
build.  A  company  agreed  to  build  a  bridge  in  a  substantial  manner,  and 
to  keep  it  in  repair  for  a  certain  time.  A  flood  carried  it  away.  It  was 
held  that  the  company  was  bound  to  rebuild.  A  person  contracted  to 
build  a  house  upon  the  land  of  another.  Before  it  was  completed  it  was 
destroyed  by  fire.  It  was  held  that  he  was  not  thereby  excused  from  the 

1  32  Law  Journal,  164. 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.       145 

performance  of  his  contract.  A  party  contracted  to  erect  and  complete 
a  building  on  a  certain  lot.  By  reason  of  a  latent  defect  in  soil,  the 
building  fell  down  before  it  was  completed.  It  was  held  (School  Trus 
tees  v.  Bennett,  a  case  in  New  Jersey,  cited  by  counsel)  that  the  loss 

must  be  borne  by  the  contractor 

"  The  principle  which  controlled  the  decision  of  the  cases  referred  to 
rests  upon  a  solid  foundation  of  reason  and  justice.  It  regards  the  sanc 
tity  of  contracts.  It  requires  parties  to  do  what  they  have  agreed  to  do. 
If  unexpected  impediments  lie  in  the  way,  and  a  loss  must  ensue,  it 
leaves  the  loss  where  the  contract  places  it.  If  the  parties  have  made 
no  provision  for  a  dispensation,  the  rule  of  law  gives  none.  It  does  not 
allow  a  contract  fairly  made  to  be  annulled,  and  it  does  not  permit  to  be 
interpolated  what  the  parties  themselves  have  not  stipulated."  1 

Now,  in  this  contract  of  insurance,  did  the  insured  reserve 
the  right  to  plead  non-performance  if  certain  unforeseen  diffi 
culties  should  arise?  The  contract  provides  for  none  of  these 
so-called  impossibilities.  It  does  not  except  the  acts  of  God. 
It  does  not  except  the  difficulties  of  communication.  It  makes 
no  exception  whatever.  In  the  case  I  have  just  quoted,  there 
is  one  and  only  one  excuse  that  may  be  pleaded  as  implied  in 
a  contract,  and  that  is  when  performance  is  prevented  by  the 
law.  The  learned  counsel  suggests  that  in  this  case  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  intervened,  cut  off  communication 
between  the  company  and  the  assured,  and  girdled  his  domicile 
with  a  wall  of  bayonets,  so  that,  if  he  was  in  default,  it  was 
because  of  the  law,  which  made  performance  impossible.  I 
ask  your  Honors  to  consider  whether  the  war  did,  in  fact, 
make  the  payment  of  the  premium  of  October  17,  1861,  impos 
sible.  Bond  was  under  obligation  to  pay  his  premiums,  not  to 
Kirtland,  but  to  some  authorized  agent  or  officer  of  the  com 
pany.  Was  there  an  impossibility  in  this  case?  Could  not  Dr. 
Bond  have  separated  himself  from  the  Rebellion?  Could  he 
not  have  left  the  Rebel  States,  and  made  his  payments  directly 
to  the  company  in  New  York,  or  to  some  authorized  agent 
within  the  national  lines? 

The  learned  counsel  who  argued  the  other  case  yesterday 
suggested  that,  when  the  law  interposed  between  the  assured 
and  his  payment,  at  that  moment  it  became  impossible  for  him 
to  change  his  domicile  so  as  to  make  his  payment,  and  therefore 
it  was  not  possible  for  him  to  make  the  payment  at  all.  I  call 

1  2  Wallace,  7,  S. 
VOL.   II.  10 


146       THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

your  Honors'  attention  to  the  judgment  of  this  court  in  a  case 
that  seems  to  me  to  bear  directly  upon  this  point,  —  the  case  of 
The  William  Bagaley. 

"  The  duty  of  a  citizen,  when  war  breaks  out,  if  it  be  a  foreign  war, 
and  he  is  abroad,  is  to  return  without  delay ;  and  if  it  be  a  civil  war, 
and  he  is  a  resident  in  the  rebellious  section,  he  should  leave  it  as  soon 
as  practicable,  and  adhere  to  the  regular  established  government 

"  Personal  property,  except  such  as  is  the  produce  of  the  hostile  soil, 
follows  as  a  general  rule  the  rights  of  the  proprietor ;  but  if  it  is  suffered 
to  remain  in  the  hostile  country  after  war  breaks  out,  it  becomes  im 
pressed  with  the  national  character  of  the  belligerent  where  it  is  situ 
ated.  Promptitude  is  therefore  justly  required  of  citizens  resident  in  the 
enemy's  country,  or  having  personal  property  there,  in  changing  their 
domicile,  severing  their  business  relations,  or  disposing  of  their  effects, 
as  matter  of  duty  to  their  own  government,  and  as  tending  to  weaken 
the  enemy.  Presumption  of  the  law  of  nations  is  against  one  who  lingers 
in  the  enemy's  country,  and  if  he  continue  there  for  much  length  of  time, 
without  satisfactory  explanation,  he  is  liable  to  be  considered  as  remo- 
rant,  or  guilty  of  culpable  delay,  and  an  enemy."  l 

Bagaley  was  a  citizen  of  Indiana,  and  a  member  of  a  firm 
doing  business  in  Alabama.  The  court  says :  "  The  effect  of 
the  war  was  to  dissolve  the  partnership,  and  the  history  of  the 
period  furnishes  plenary  evidence  that  ample  time  was  afforded 
to  every  citizen  desiring  to  improve  it,  to  withdraw  all  such  and 
dispose  of  all  such  interests." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  assured  in  this  case  had  ample  time 
and  opportunity  to  abandon  the  Rebel  territory.  In  May,  1861, 
the  State  of  Tennessee  declared  itself  free  from  the  Federal 
bond;  and  although  on  the  I3th  of  July  following  Congress 
passed  the  act  empowering  the  President  to  proclaim  non-in 
tercourse  between  the  belligerents,  that  proclamation  was  not 
made  until  the  i6th  of  August.  Until  then  there  certainly 
was  nothing  to  prevent  Dr.  Bond  from  making  his  election  to 
remain  with  the  public  enemy  and  suffer  the  dissolution  of  his 
insurance  policy,  or  to  come  within  the  national  lines  and  save 
it.  Even  after  the  proclamation,  there  followed  three  months  in 
which  he  could  have  saved  his  contract;  for  the  record  shows 
that  his  premium  was  not  due  until  October  17,  1861.  He  made 
his  election.  He  chose  to  stay  where  it  finally  became  impos 
sible  for  him  to  make  payment.  Can  he  now  plead  this  impos- 

1  5  Wallace,  408. 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.       147 

sibility  as  a  lawful  excuse  for  not  making  the  payment?  It  was 
not  only  possible,  but  easy,  for  Dr.  Bond  to  have  put  himself  in 
a  position  where  he  could  make  the  payment,  and  his  own 
choice  cannot  now  be  pleaded  as  an  impossibility  to  perform  his 
part  of  the  contract.  The  opinion  of  this  court  in  the  case  I 
have  cited,  if  applied  to  Bond,  would  clearly  indicate  that  it  was 
his  duty  as  a  citizen  to  abandon  the  enemy's  territory.  This 
view  is  in  accordance  with  public  policy.  It  would,  indeed, 
be  strange  if,  having  elected  to  become  a  public  enemy,  his 
representatives  shall  now  say  that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to 
perform  his  part  of  the  contract,  and  he  may  not  only  be  ex 
cused,  but  shall  suffer  no  loss,  either  for  his  choice  or  his  non- 
performance. 

THE  COURT.    Does  that  case  refer  to  residents  of  the  South  ? 

I  think,  your  Honors,  the  reasoning  of  the  court  in  that  case 
does  apply  to  residents  of  the  South. 

THE  COURT.  Then  all  loyal  citizens  South  would  be  obliged  to  emi 
grate  North  in  order  to  preserve  their  rights  ? 

I  should  say,  if  they  did  not  wish  to  be  classed  as  enemies, 
and  suffer  the  losses  that  a  state  of  war  would  bring,  they  must 
abandon  the  enemy's  territory. 

THE  COURT.    The  question  is,  Did  they  lose  anything? 

I  should  say  they  did ;  that  they  lost  the  right  to  compel  a 
loyal  company  to  continue  to  do  business  for  them  while  they 
were  public  enemies.  When  they  elected  to  stay  with  the 
enemy,  they  elected  to  suffer  the  consequences,  —  to  suffer  such 
losses  as  a  state  of  war  would  bring  upon  their  business  relations 
with  loyal  men. 

I  will  not  weary  your  Honors  with  many  citations  of  author 
ities,  for  the  books  are  full  of  them,  but  will  state  in  a  summary 
way  what  we  understand  are  the  doctrines  already  settled  by 
the  courts  in  regard  to  the  effect  of  war  upon  the  business  rela 
tions  between  belligerents. 

And,  first,  it  is  well  settled,  both  by  the  laws  of  nations  and 
by  municipal  law,  that  contracts  cannot  be  made  between  belli 
gerents,  and  that  executory  contracts  which  require  any  further 
intercourse  or  action  by  the  parties  thereto  are  dissolved  when 
ever  the  parties  become  enemies  by  a  declaration  of  war.  This 
principle  was  frequently  asserted  by  this  court  in  the  years  im 
mediately  following  the  last  war  with  Great  Britain. 


1 48        THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

In  the  case  of  The  Julia,  Mr.  Justice  Story,  in  delivering  the 
opinion  of  the  court,  brings  to  bear  on  this  question  the  author 
ity  of  international  law,  and  states  at  great  length  the  grounds 
on  which  the  opinion  of  the  court  is  based.  He  declares  that 
"  no  contract  is  considered  as  valid  between  enemies,  at  least  so 
far  as  to  give  them  a  remedy  in  the  courts  of  either  govern 
ment."1  I  refer  also  to  3  Washington,  127.  This  doctrine  has 
since  been  reiterated  in  a  long  line  of  decisions,  extending  down 
even  to  the  present  term  of  this  court.  The  court  has  stated  the 
doctrine  very  succinctly,  in  the  case  of  The  William  Bagaley.  I 
quote  :  "  Executory  contracts  with  an  alien  enemy,  or  even  with 
a  neutral,  if  they  cannot  be  performed  except  in  the  way  of  com 
mercial  intercourse  with  the  enemy,  are  ipso  facto  dissolved  by 
the  declaration  of  war,  which  operates  to  that  end  and  for  that 
purpose,  with  a  force  equivalent  to  that  of  an  act  of  Congress."2 
In  The  United  States  v.  Lapene,  No.  96  of  this  term,  Mr.  Jus 
tice  Hunt,  delivering  the  opinion  of  the  court,  says:  "  All  com 
mercial  contracts  with  the  subjects  or  in  the  territory  of  the 
enemy,  whether  made  directly  by  one  in  person,  or  indirectly 
through  an  agent  who  is  neutral,  are  illegal  and  void.  This 
principle  is  now  too  well  settled  to  justify  discussion."3  With 
that  intimation  from  the  court  I  need  not  say  more. 

THE  COURT.  Contracts  made  pending  the  war.  Not  contracts  made 
before  the  war. 

But,  your  Honors,  in  the  decisions  referred  to,  it  is  held  that 
not  only  contracts  made  by  belligerents  during  the  war,  but 
also  executory  contracts  made  before  the  war,  which  require 
intercourse,  are  dissolved  by  war.  It  is  not  affirmed  that  all 
contracts  are  made  void  by  war;  the  doctrine  is  confined  to 
those  which  require  intercourse  and  further  action  on  the  part 
of  belligerents. 

Second.  It  is  well  settled,  and  is  admitted  in  the  brief  of  the 
learned  counsel  on  the  other  side,  that  partnerships  are  dissolved 
when  war  makes  partners  public  enemies.  I  will  not  stop  to 
discuss  this  proposition. 

Third.  The  same  rule  applies  to  agencies,  except  that  an 
agent  appointed  before  the  war  may  during  war  receive  pay 
ment  for  a  debt  due  his  principal;  but  he  can  make  no  new 
negotiation. 

1  8  Cranch,  194.  2  ^  Wallace,  407.  3  17  Wallace,  602,  603. 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.      149 

Fourth.  It  is  also  well  settled  that  marine  insurance  policies 
are  abrogated  by  war.  The  doctrine  is  clearly  stated  in  Gray  v. 
Sims  et  al.  In  that  case  the  court  says  :  "  If  the  contract 
[of  insurance]  be  legal  when  it  is  made,  and  the  performance 
of  it  rendered  illegal  by  a  subsequent  law,  the  parties  are  both 
of  them  discharged  from  its  obligations.  The  insured  loses  his 
indemnity,  and  the  insurer  his  premium." 1  The  principles 
upon  which  this  doctrine  is  founded  are  set  forth  very  fully 
and  clearly  by  Mr.  Duer,  in  his  work  on  Marine  Insurance,2  to 
which  reference  has  been  made  in  our  brief. 

Such  being  the  decisions  of  the  court  in  reference  to  execu 
tory  contracts,  partnerships,  agencies,  and  policies  of  marine 
insurance,  we  may  inquire  whether  the  principles  on  which 
these  decisions  were  based  will  not,  with  equal  justice,  apply  to 
a  contract  of  life  insurance.  I  believe  no  case  has  yet  been 
determined  by  this  court  which  directly  involves  such  a  policy. 
I  submit  that  it  is  incumbent  upon  the  learned  counsel  on  the 
other  side  to  show  why  a  contract  of  life  insurance  should  be 
excepted  from  the  general  rule. 

And  now,  may  it  please  your  Honors,  let  us  consider  the 
grounds  on  which  the  various  decisions  already  referred  to  rest. 
On  what  principles  have  the  courts  proceeded  in  determining 
the  effect  of  war  on  executory  contracts,  partnerships,  agencies, 
and  policies  of  marine  insurance?  These  decisions  appear 
to  rest  mainly  on  three  grounds  of  public  policy,  —  grounds 
which  appear  with  more  or  less  distinctness  in  the  reasonings 
of  the  courts  in  all  the  cases  referred  to. 

And  the  first  is,  that  public  policy  forbids  the  continuation  of 
any  business  or  commercial  relations  that  require  intercourse 
between  belligerents.  Commercial  intercourse  between  public 
enemies  is  held  to  be  inconsistent  with  public  policy.  It  will  not 
be  denied  that,  in  all  these  cases,  the  chief  reason  given  by  the 
courts  why  war  abrogates  a  contract  of  marine  insurance,  and 
contracts  relating  to  other  classes  of  business  referred  to,  is  that 
their  continuance  requires  intercourse  and  communication  be 
tween  belligerents,  which  war  makes  unlawful.  It  can  hardly 
be  claimed  that  the  business  of  life  insurance  could  be  carried 
on  by  a  company  in  New  York,  with  the  insured  member  within 
the  Rebel  lines,  without  intercourse.  The  charter  of  the  com 
pany  requires  that  blank  receipts  be  sent  to  the  agent  that  he 

1  3  Wash.  280.  2  Vol.  I.  pp.  413-478  (New  York,  1845). 


ISO 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 


may  receive  renewal  premiums.  The  agent  must  keep  the  com 
pany  informed  whether  the  assured  has  so  complied  with  the 
terms  of  the  policy  as  to  be  entitled  to  renewal,  and  the  pre 
miums  paid  must  be  forwarded  to  the  company  by  the  agent. 
In  fact,  the  relation  of  insurer  and  insured  requires  free  and 
frequent  communication,  which  is  wholly  inconsistent  with  a 
state  of  war. 

The  second  ground,  especially  as  applied  to  policies  of  ma 
rine  insurance,  is  that  the  object  insured  is  liable  to  capture  by 
the  enemy.  Between  most  nations  that  go  to  war,  the  sea  rolls, 
and  ships  sail;  and  one  of  the  first  efforts  of  a  belligerent  is 
directed  to  the  destruction  of  the  commerce  of  the  enemy.  A 
contract  of  marine  insurance  is  directly  affected,  because  ships, 
the  subject  matter  of  such  insurance,  are  liable  to  capture  by 
the  enemy.  Apply  this  principle  to  a  policy  of  life  insurance. 
The  subject  matter  of  such  insurance  is  life,  —  and  in  this  case 
the  life  of  an  enemy.  If  a  contract  of  marine  insurance  is 
made  void  by  war,  because  the  ship  insured  is  liable  to  cap 
ture,  how  much  more  would  the  life  of  a  belligerent  enemy  be 
an  improper  subject  matter  for  the  other  belligerent  to  insure ! 
If  ships  are  part  of  the  materials  of  war,  much  more  are  lives. 
It  would  seem  to  be  in  the  highest  degree  against  public  policy 
that  a  company  in  the  loyal  States  should  continue  to  insure 
the  lives,  and  be  interested  in  the  preservation  of  the  lives,  of 
those  who  are  public  enemies. 

It  is  no  sufficient  answer  to  say  that  the  insured  in  this  case 
was  a  non-combatant.  He  was  none  the  less  a  public  enemy, 
whose  life  and  influence  were  thrown  into  the  scale  against  the 
national  government.  If  the  policy  of  insurance  had  remained 
in  force,  the  company  would  have  had  a  direct  interest  in  the 
preservation  of  his  life,  and  in  the  continued  payments  of  his 
premium. 

A  third  reason  which  appears  in  many  of  the  decisions  touch 
ing  the  effect  of  war  upon  executory  contracts  is  that  the  carry 
ing  on  of  a  business,  or  the  keeping  alive  of  a  contract  requiring 
additional  performance  on  the  part  of  the  belligerents,  would 
tend  to  increase  the  resources  of  the  enemy.  In  the  opinion  of 
Judge  Emmons,  which  is  a  part  of  the  record,  this  phase  of  the 
case  is  very  fully  discussed.  It  seems  clear  that,  if  a  great  com 
pany  in  New  York  be  required  to  discharge  all  its  functions,  to 
perform  all  its  duties  as  a  corporation,  and  through  all  the 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.        151 

years  of  a  great  war  to  keep  alive  a  contract  for  the  benefit  of  a 
public  enemy,  that  company  will  be  adding  to  the  resources  of 
the  enemy.  I  cannot  believe  that  one  belligerent  will  require 
its  citizens  to  manage  their  business  for  the  benefit  of  the  citi 
zens  of  another  belligerent. 

The  learned  counsel  on  the  other  side  has  quoted  the  case  of 
The  United  States  v.  Grossmayer,  to  show  that  an  agent  may 
receive  a  debt ;  and  he  has  suggested  that,  if  he  may  receive  a 
debt,  it  was  lawful  for  Mr.  Kirtland,  our  agent,  to  receive  the 
premium  in  October,  1861.  I  believe  the  case  cited  contains 
one  of  the  two  qualifications  which  this  court  has  made  since 
the  war,  restricting  the  broad  and  sweeping  application  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  effect  of  war  upon  business  relations  between 
belligerents.  It  was  there  decided,  that  an  agent  might  receive 
money  or  property  for  a  belligerent  in  payment  of  a  debt.  But 
the  court  says  that  "  in  such  a  case  the  agency  must  have  been 
created  before  the  war  began,  for  there  is  no  power  to  appoint 
an  agent  for  any  purpose  after  hostilities  have  actually  com 
menced  ;  and  to  this  effect  are  all  the  authorities."  1 

This  opinion  should  be  considered  in  connection  with  the 
case  of  The  United  States  v.  Lapene,  already  cited.  In  that 
case,  an  agent  had  been  empowered  before  the  war  to  collect 
debts  in  the  South.  He  had  also  been  empowered  to  purchase 
cotton  with  the  moneys  thus  collected.  The  court  held  that  in 
the  receiving  of  money  on  debts  due  the  agent  acted  lawfully. 
But  it  appeared  that,  after  having  received  the  money,  he  pro 
ceeded  to  purchase  cotton,  in  pursuance  of  his  authority  as  pur 
chasing  agent.  This  the  court  decided  he  could  not  do.  The 
court  says :  — 

"  The  agency  to  purchase  cotton  was  terminated  by  the  hostile  posi 
tion  of  the  parties.  The  agency  to  receive  payment  of  debts  due  to 
Lapene  &  Co.  may  well  have  continued.  But  Avegno  was  no  debtor  to 
that  firm.  He  advanced  money  to  their  agent  when  it  was  legal  to  do 
so.  With  this  money,  and  other  moneys  belonging  to  them,  while  in  an 
enemy's  country,  the  agent  of  the  plaintiffs  bought  the  cotton  in  question. 
This  purchase  gave  effectual  aid  to  the  enemy,  by  furnishing  to  them  the 
sinews  of  war.  It  was  forbidden  by  the  soundest  principles  of  public 
law."  2 

The  mere  receiving  of  money  by  an  agent  in  payment  of  a 
debt  was  lawful;  but  when  the  agent  undertook  to  transact 

1  9  Wallace,  75.  a  17  Wallace,  604. 


152       THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

other  business,  to  make  a  purchase  which  he  had  been  author 
ized  to  make,  the  court  says  that  he  did  what  was  forbidden  by 
the  soundest  principles  of  public  law. 

Now,  by  what  logic  can  the  learned  counsel  on  the  other  side 
bring  this  case  of  Grossmayer  into  their  service?  Will  they  hold 
that  the  payment  of  this  premium  was  only  the  payment  of  a 
debt?  In  what  recognized  sense  of  the  term  can  a  premium  on 
a  life  insurance  policy  be  called  a  debt?  Nothing  is  a  debt  that 
is  not  collectible  by  law.  Dr.  Bond  was  under  no  obligation 
whatever  to  pay  the  premium.  It  was  within  his  power  to 
decline  to  pay  for  any  reason,  good  or  bad,  and  the  company 
had  no  resource ;  they  could  not  compel  him  to  pay.  It  was 
a  unilateral  contract,  which  left  the  insured  free  to  pay  or  not, 
as  he  pleased.  If  he  paid,  the  company  was  bound  by  the  con 
tract.  But  whether  he  paid  or  did  not  pay  was  a  matter  of  his 
own  choice.  The  premium  cannot,  therefore,  be  called  a  debt. 
In  its  relations  to  war,  the  premium  differs  from  a  debt  in  this : 
the  Confederacy  could  confiscate  a  debt,  whether  paid  to  an 
agent  or  not.  If  Dr.  Bond  had  owed  a  debt  to  the  New  York 
Life,  the  Confederate  government  could  have  confiscated  it  in 
Dr.  Bond's  hands  just  as  well  as  it  could  after  it  had  been 
paid  over  to  Kirtland.  It  did  not  change  the  status  of  the 
property.  And  it  appears  to  me  a  sufficient  reason  why  the 
court  has  decided  that  an  agent  may  receive  a  debt,  because  in 
so  doing  it  does  not  change  the  status  of  the  property  in  rela 
tion  to  belligerent  parties.  But  suppose  Dr.  Bond  had  paid  the 
premium  to  Kirtland  as  the  agent  of  the  New  York  company. 
The  moment  before  payment  it  was  Bond's  money,  not  liable  to 
confiscation  by  the  Confederate  authorities ;  but  the  moment  he 
took  the  $224.50  from  his  estate,  and  delivered  it  over  to  a 
recognized  agent  of  the  New  York  company,  that  moment  it 
would  have  been  enemy's  property  in  Kirtland's  hands,  and 
that  moment  it  would  have  been  liable  to  confiscation  by  the 
Confederate  authorities.  And  this  fact  makes  the  power  of  an 
agent  to  receive  money  in  payment  of  a  debt  wholly  unlike  the 
power  of  an  agent  to  receive  money  as  a  premium  on  an  insur 
ance  policy. 

I  desire  to  call  your  Honors'  attention  to  another  aspect  of 
this  case.  If  the  view  contended  for  by  counsel  on  the  other 
side  be  correct,  the  war  conferred  special  legal  benefits  upon  all 
assured  persons  within  the  territory  of  the  Rebellion.  A  large 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.       153 

per  cent  of  those  who  hold  life  insurance  policies  annually  fail 
to  pay  their  premiums.  This  happens  partly  by  accident  and 
partly  by  their  own  choice.  Now,  if  the  doctrine  contended  for 
by  the  opposing  counsel  be  adopted,  it  will  follow  that  war  ex 
cuses  all  assured  persons  from  the  necessity  of  paying  their  pre 
miums  to  any  company  belonging  to  a  belligerent,  but  does  not 
release  the  company  from  its  obligations  to  keep  the  policy  alive, 
and  to  pay  the  loss  whenever  the  war  is  over.  Thus  the  assured 
enemy  enjoys  all  the  benefits  of  the  insurance,  and  incurs  no 
risk  by  failure  to  pay  his  premium.  Indeed,  the  war  not  only 
excuses  him  from  payment,  but  gives  him  all  the  rights  and 
benefits  of  his  policy,  even  though  he  did  not  intend  to  make 
payment. 

If  it  should  be  determined  that  an  insured  enemy  is  entitled 
to  have  his  insurance  policy  carried  all  through  the  war,  this 
will  follow:  the  insured  is  under  no  obligation  to  pay  his  pre 
mium,  because  the  war  excuses  him;  but  the  company  is 
obliged  to  carry  and  protect  the  interest  of  the  insured,  without 
enjoying  the  benefit  of  the  premiums,  or  the  interest  that  it  is 
entitled  to  derive  therefrom.  Now,  the  life  of  the  company 
depends  upon  receiving  its  premiums  promptly,  and  investing 
them,  so  as  to  make  it  possible  to  pay  losses.  Yet  it  must  go 
forward  without  its  premiums,  or  interest  thereon,  to  keep  alive 
a  contract  with  a  public  enemy  who  incurs  no  risk,  no  danger  of 
a  lapse,  no  loss  in  any  way,  and  who  is  shielded  from  obligation 
to  pay  only  because  he  has  elected  to  stay  with  the  enemy.  I 
cannot  believe  that  this  would  be  equitable,  even  if  it  should  be 
held  that  life  insurance  policies  are  only  suspended,  and  not 
abrogated,  by  war. 

There  is  another  phase  of  this  case  to  which  I  desire  to  call 
your  Honors'  attention.  There  is  in  the  State  of  New  York  a 
public  officer  called  the  Insurance  Commissioner,  whose  duty  it 
is  to  examine  the  condition  of  insurance  companies,  to  see  that 
each  policy  claimed  to  be  in  force  is  sustained  by  the  proper 
legal  reserve  in  possession  of  the  company.  Companies  which 
do  not  hold  the  requisite  legal  reserve  to  cover  the  policies 
which  they  consider  in  force,  are  declared  insolvent,  and  are 
closed  up.  Now,  if  the  doctrine  insisted  on  by  the  counsel  on 
the  other  side  should  be  adopted,  it  might  result  that,  while  the 
New  York  company  was  doing  all  in  its  power  to  keep  itself  in 
a  sound  condition,  yet,  because  so  many  of  its  members  be- 


154       THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

longing  to  a  belligerent  government  had  not  paid  their  premi 
ums,  the  reserves  of  the  company  might  fall  below  the  amount 
required  by  law,  and  that  the  Commissioner  would  report  the 
company  insolvent,  and  wind  it  up.  In  that  case,  the  company 
would  be  insolvent  only  because  the  court  should  declare  it 
to  be  the  duty  of  the  company  to  carry  ten  thousand  policies, 
perhaps,  on  the  lives  of  enemies. 

The  counsel  who  last  addressed  the  court  cited  a  case,  the 
case  of  Semmes  v.  Hartford  Insurance  Company.1  I  submit 
that  there  is  nothing  in  that  case  which  throws  any  light  on  the 
question  of  the  validity  of  insurance  policies  during  war.  In 
that  case  the  loss  occurred  before  the  war  began,  and  there 
was  a  complete  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  company  to  pay. 
It  so  happened  that,  before  the  sixty  days  had  elapsed  within 
which  the  company  was  obliged  to  make  payment,  the  war 
broke  out.  It  was  simply  a  question  as  to  the  construction  of 
the  statute  of  limitations  as  affected  by  the  war. 

MR.  PHILLIPS.  I  merely  cited  it  as  authority  to  show  that  the  war 
was  an  excuse  for  the  non -performance  of  a  thing  expressly  stipulated  in 
the  contract. 

The  case  shows  clearly  that  it  was  simply  a  question  whether 
the  failure  to  bring  suit  within  the  length  of  time  was  excused 
by  the  war. 

The  learned  counsel  also  made  another  suggestion  to  which  I 
desire  to  call  your  Honors'  attention.  He  held  that  ours  was  an 
insurrection  rather  than  a  war.  For  a  full  answer  to  this  sug 
gestion,  I  refer  to  the  decision  of  this  court  in  the  Prize  Cases,2 
where  it  is  shown  that  our  war  was  not  merely  an  insurrection, 
not  merely  a  rebellion,  but  a  great  territorial  civil  war,  with  defi 
nitely  defined  boundaries,  —  a  contest  to  be  carried  on  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  laws  of  nations,  the  laws  of  war.  It  was  as 
really  a  war  as  though  it  had  been  waged  between  England  and 
the  United  States.  If  these  two  had  been  the  belligerents,  the 
insurance  cases  .likely  to  arise  would  have  been  cases  of  marine 
insurance ;  but  from  the  fact  that  ours  was  a  war  between  those 
who  had  been  fellow-citizens,  and  had  been  in  close  business 
relations  with  each  other,  it  has  resulted  that  contracts  of  life 
insurance  have  borne  to  the  Rebellion  a  relation  analogous  to  that 
which  contracts  of  marine  insurance  ordinarily  bear  to  a  foreign 

1  13  Wallace,  158.  2  2  Black,  63,  65. 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 


155 


war.  From  our  study  of  the  principles  that  underlie  both  kinds 
of  insurance,  it  seems  to  us  that  the  great  doctrines  which  have 
been  held  by  this  court  in  a  long  series  of  decisions  require  only 
to  be  applied  in  the  same  spirit  that  they  have  already  been 
applied  in  ordinary  contracts  of  partnership,  agency,  and  marine 
insurance,  to  enable  us  to  reach  a  just  conclusion  in  this  case. 

It  is  not  out  of  place  to  suggest,  that  a  decision  which  shall 
determine  that  this  life  insurance  company  is  bound  to  keep 
alive  its  contracts  with  public  enemies  will  probably  strike  a 
staggering  blow  to  those  companies  that  had  a  large  Southern 
membership  before  the  war.  But  the  future  is  more  important 
than  the  past,  provided  it  be  determined  that,  when  a  civil  war 
breaks  out,  those  citizens  who  elect  to  stay  with  rebels  shall  lose 
nothing  on  their  life  insurance  policies,  but,  by  playing  the  part 
of  non-combatants,  shall  be  able  to  hold  their  grip  on  loyal  life 
insurance  companies,  while  uninsured  enemies  go  into  the  field 
and  do  the  fighting.  I  submit  that  it  is  far  more  in  accord 
ance  with  public  policy  that  every  citizen  should  know  that  he 
cannot  rebel  against  his  country  without  losing  the  benefits 
which  result  from  a  policy  of  life  insurance ;  that  to  maintain 
such  a  policy  he  must  commit  his  fortune  and  his  life  to  the 
cause  of  his  country,  and  not  to  the  cause  of  her  enemies. 


EFFECTS  OF  THE  REBELLION  ON  SOUTH 
ERN   LIFE    INSURANCE   CONTRACTS. 

ARGUMENT  MADE  BEFORE  THE  SUPREME  COURT  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES  IN  THE  CASES  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  LIFE 
INSURANCE  COMPANY  v.  STATHAM  ET  AL.  AND  THE  SAME 
v.  CHARLOTTE  SEYMS. 

APRIL  26,  1876. 


THESE  cases  were  decided  at  the  October  term  of  the  court,  1876, 
and  the  decision,  pronounced  by  Mr.  Justice  Bradley,  is  found  in  3  Otto's 
Reports.  The  Reporter  thus  states  the  history  of  the  two  cases  :  — 

"  The  first  of  these  cases  is  here  on  appeal  from,  and  the  second  on 
writ  of  error  to,  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Southern 
District  of  Mississippi. 

"  The  first  case  is  a  bill  in  equity,  filed  to  recover  the  amount  of  a 
policy  of  life  assurance,  granted  by  the  defendant  (now  appellant)  in 
1851  on  the  life  of  Dr.  A.  D.  Statham,  of  Mississippi,  from  the  proceeds 
of  certain  funds  belonging  to  the  defendant  attached  in  the  hands  of  its. 
agent  at  Jackson,  in  that  State.  It  appears  from  the  statements  of  the 
bill  that  the  annual  premiums  accruing  on  the  policy  were  all  regularly 
paid  until  the  breaking  out  of  the  late  civil  war,  but  that,  in  consequence 
of  that  event,  the  premium  due  on  the  8th  of  December,  1861,  was  not 
paid ;  the  parties  assured  being  residents  of  Mississippi,  and  the  defend 
ant  a  corporation  of  New  York.  Dr.  Statham  died  in  July,  1862. 

"  The  second  case  is  an  action  at  law  against  the  same  defendant  to 
recover  the  amount  of  a  policy  issued  in  1859,  on  the  life  of  Henry  S. 
Seyms,  the  husband  of  the  plaintiff.  In  this  case,  also,  the  premiums 
had  been  paid  until  the  breaking  out  of  the  war,  when,  by  reason  thereof, 
they  ceased  to  be  paid,  the  plaintiff  and  her  husband  being  residents  of 
Mississippi.  He  died  in  May,  1862." 

This  is  the  Reporter's  syllabus  of  the  decision  :  — 

"  i.  A  policy  of  life  assurance  which  stipulates  for  the  payment 'of 
an  annual  premium  by  the  assured,  with  a  condition  to  be  void  on  non 
payment,  is  not  an  insurance  from  year  to  year,  like  a  common  fire 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.       157 

policy ;  but  the  premiums  constitute  an  annuity,  the  whole  of  which  is 
the  consideration  for  the  entire  assurance  for  life ;  and  the  condition  is 
a  condition  subsequent,  making,  by  its  non-performance,  the  policy  void. 

"  2.  The  time  of  payment  in  such  a  policy  is  material,  and  of  the 
essence  of  the  contract ;  and  a  failure  to  pay  involves  an  absolute  for 
feiture,  which  cannot  be  relieved  against  in  equity. 

"3.  If  a  failure  to  pay  the  annual  premium  be  caused  by  the  in 
tervention  of  war  between  the  territories  in  which  the  insurance  com 
pany  and  the  assured  respectively  reside,  which  makes  it  unlawful  for 
them  to  hold  intercourse,  the  policy  is  nevertheless  forfeited  if  the  com 
pany  insist  on  the  condition ;  but  in  such  case  the  assured  is  entitled  to 
the  equitable  value  of  the  policy  arising  from  the  premiums  actually  paid. 

"  4.  This  equitable  value  is  the  difference  between  the  cost  of  a  new 
policy  and  the  present  value  of  the  premiums  yet  to  be  paid  on  the  for 
feited  policy  when  the  forfeiture  occurred,  and  may  be  recovered  in  an 
action  at  law  or  a  suit  in  equity. 

"5.  The  doctrine  of  revival  of  contracts,  suspended  during  the  war, 
is  based  on  considerations  of  equity  and  justice,  and  cannot  be  invoked 
to  revive  a  contract  which  it  would  be  unjust  or  inequitable  to  revive,  — 
as  where  time  is  of  the  essence  of  the  contract,  or  the  parties  cannot  be 
made  equal. 

"  6.  The  average  rate  of  mortality  is  the  fundamental  basis  of  life  as 
surance,  and  as  this  is  subverted  by  giving  to  the  assured  the  option  to 
revive  their  policies  or  not  after  they  have  been  suspended  by  a  war 
(since  none  but  the  sick  and  dying  would  apply),  it  would  be  unjust  to 
compel  a  revival  against  the  company." 

Hon.  Matt  H.  Carpenter  opened,  and  Mr.  Garfield  closed  for  the 
plaintiff. 


MAY  IT  PLEASE  THE  COURT :  —  It  is  certainly  a  ground 
for  congratulation,  both  to  the  court  and  the  bar,  that 
we  have  so  nearly  reached  the  end  of  the  discussion  of  the 
vexed  questions  involved  in  these  cases.  But,  after  the  court 
has  been  deluged  with  the  argument  of  three  hundred  causes, 
and  now,  near  the  close  of  a  long  term,  is  asked  to  consider  for 
the  third  time  the  complicated  questions  growing  out  of  the 
effects  of  war  upon  a  policy  of  life  insurance,  I  may  safely  say 
that  the  man  who  presses  to  your  Honors'  lips  the  cup  which 
contains  the  dregs  of  this  long  debate  needs  the  sympathy,  if  not 
the  forgiveness,  of  the  court.  In  closing  the  argument  of  these 
causes,  therefore,  I  shall  avoid,  as  far  as  possible,  any  repetition 
of  what  has  been  so  well  said  by  my  learned  colleague. 


158        THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

He  has  stated  very  clearly  the  chief  ground  upon  which  the 
business  of  life  insurance  rests;  but  as  there  is  also  another 
element  worthy  of  consideration,  I  will  state  the  two  in  con 
nection.  Both  elements  grow  out  of  the  very  curious  —  I 
might  perhaps  say  the  mysterious  —  doctrine  of  chances,  or 
rather  the  law  of  averages.  The  late  Baron  Quetelet,  of  Bel 
gium,  a  leading  authority  on  this  subject  and  on  vital  statistics, 
has  shown  that,  if  a  pair  of  dice  be  thrown  a  million  times,  the 
lowest  count  being  two  and  the  highest  twelve,  the  aggregate 
count  will  be  almost  exactly  seven  millions.  The  mathemati 
cal  average  will  be  realized  in  the  practical  result.  In  fact, 
the  variation  from  that  average  will  disappear  long  before  the 
millionth  throw.  Nothing  is  more  uncertain  than  the  result 
of  any  one  throw ;  few  things  more  certain  than  the  result  of 
many  throws. 

When  applied  to  human  life,  the  law  of  averages  exhibits 
many  striking  results.  The  element  of  sex  in  population  would 
seem  to  be,  at  first  thought,  wholly  fortuitous.  In  one  family 
all  the  children  are  boys ;  in  the  next,  all  girls ;  apparently  an 
irregular  distribution,  controlled  by  no  law.  But  whenever  large 
masses  of  population  are  considered,  the  law  of  averages  ap 
pears  in  full  force,  and  with  the  most  remarkable  constancy. 
Throughout  the  civilized  world,  it  appears  that  to  every  one 
thousand  females  there  are  born  one  thousand  and  fifty-six 
males.  Quetelet  has  collected  and  tabulated  the  vital  statistics 
of  twenty-seven  countries  of  Europe ;  and  has  shown,  not  only 
that  the  grand  average  of  male  and  female  births  is  as  I  have 
stated,  but  that  in  each  country  the  average  is  almost  exactly 
the  same.  Indeed,  when  so  small  a  territory  as  a  county  of 
twenty-five  •  thousand  inhabitants  is  considered,  the  variation 
from  this  ratio  is  very  small.  Soon  after  I  first  read  Quetelet's 
book,  there  fell  into  my  hands  a  copy  of  the  annual  report  of 
the  Registrar  of  Rhode  Island,  a  small  State  three  thousand 
miles  away  from  the  nearest  of  the  twenty-seven  kingdoms  on 
which  his  average  had  been  calculated ;  and  turning  to  the  rec 
ord  of  births,  I  found  that  the  ratio  for  the  year  was  one  thou 
sand  females  to  one  thousand  and  fifty-seven  males,  a  variation 
of  but  one  in  a  thousand  from  the  general  average  of  all  Europe. 

This  law  applied  to  the  death  rate  shows  results  equally  strik 
ing.  Few  things  are  more  uncertain  than  the  chances  of  any 
one  life ;  yet,  of  a  large  group  of  people,  the  per  cent  that  will 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.        159 

die  annually  can  be  predicted  with  almost  mathematical  cer 
tainty.  From  this  law  of  nature  the  individual  seems  wholly 
free ;  yet  to  a  great  group  of  individuals  it  applies  with  inex 
orable  certainty, — 

"  So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems, 
So  careless  of  the  single  life." 

This  law  as  exhibited  in  the  average  expectation  of  life  is 
one  of  the  two  bases,  I  may  say  one  of  the  two  piers,  on  which 
the  superstructure  of  life  insurance  rests.  No  company  could 
undertake  to  insure  just  one  life ;  but,  trusting  to  the  great  law 
of  averages,  it  may,  with  perfect  safety,  insure  a  great  group  of 
lives.  Thus  a  contract  of  life  insurance  is  made  possible.  The 
business  of  the  company  is  made  safe,  because  its  income  is 
calculated  on  the  sure  basis  of  the  law  of  averages ;  and  the  in 
sured  is  protected  against  the  loss  arising  from  the  uncertainty 
of  a  single  life.  The  certainty  that  a  fixed  per  cent  of  the  in 
sured  will  die  in  each  year,  makes  it  necessary  that,  with  equal 
certainty,  those  who  live  and  remain  in  the  company  shall  pay 
their  annual  premiums,  and  thus  enable  the  company  to  meet 
their  annual  losses. 

But  there  is  another  element  in  a  contract  of  life  insurance, — 
a  second  pier  upon  which  the  structure  rests,  —  that  should  be 
considered  in  construing  the  contract.  I  refer  to  the  per  cent 
of  lapses  as  a  source  of  income  to  the  company.  Of  those  who 
become  insured,  and  at  the. time  intend  to  continue  during  life, 
a  considerable  number,  from  choice,  necessity,  or  accident,  aban 
don  their  policies  after  a  few  years,  and  forfeit  the  premiums 
they  have  paid.  I  have  asked  the  New  York  Life  Insurance 
Company  to  furnish  me  with  a  statement  of  the  annual  per  cent 
of  lapses ;  and  their  letter  shows,  from  the  aggregate  experience 
of  all  the  life  companies  in  America,  that  the  average  of  lapses 
is  nearly  ten  per  cent;  that  is,  ten  per  cent  of  the  insured  aban 
don  their  policies  after  having  paid  one  or  more  premiums. 

MR.  JUSTICE  MILLER.  My  impression  was  that  the  Insurance  Com 
missioners  of  New  York  and  other  places  have  put  it  just  the  other  way ; 
that  not  more  than  ten  per  cent  ever  came  to  bearing. 

I  do  not  now  speak  of  those  who  die,  but  of  those  who  live 
and  allow  their  policies  to  lapse. 

MR.  JUSTICE  MILLER.  Is  it  not  true  that  ninety  per  cent  of  those  who 
take  out  policies  never  die  with  the  policies  in  existence  ? 


160       THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

I  do  not  so  understand  it. 

MR.  JUSTICE  MILLER.  I  know  very  well  the  enormous  ratio  which  the 
Commissioners  of  several  of  the  States  show ;  and  that  is  where  all  the 
profit  and  hardship  come  in.  My  impression  was,  that  out  of  eight  poli 
cies  not  more  than  one  continues  until  death. 

I  am  informed  by  an  officer  of  the  New  York  Life,  that  nearly 
fifty  per  cent  of  their  policies  issued  to  persons  still  living  are 
valid  to-day.1 

MR.  JUSTICE  BRADLEY.  The  annual  report  and  each  policy  shows  its 
own  number.  They  can  show,  therefore,  how  many  they  have  paid,  and 
how  many  still  are  standing.  Of  course  it  is  much  more  than  ten  per 
cent  that  remain  in  existence  to  the  end  of  life. 

It  is  not  essential  to  my  argument  that  I  state  the  per  cent 
correctly;  but  certainly  there  is  a  per  cent  per  annum  of  persons 
insured  who  allow  their  policies  to  lapse,  and  the  forfeited  pre 
miums  are  a  second  source  of  income  to  the  companies. 

MR.  JUSTICE  BRADLEY.  Do  your  companies  ever  take  that  into  con 
sideration  as  a  basis  of  insurance  ? 

That  element,  I  was  about  to  say,  is  a  source  of  profit  to  the 
companies.  It  is  one  of  their  two  original  sources  of  income,  a 
source  found  in  the  certainty,  derived  from  the  law  of  averages, 
that  a  certain  number  of  policies  will  lapse. 

1  The  following  note  is  appended  to  this  argument  in  the  edition  published  by 
the  Insurance  Company. 

"  There  was  manifestly  a  misunderstanding  between  the  court  and  the  counsel  in 
reference  to  time  included  in  the  statement  of  the  per  cent  of  lapses.  The  counsel 
was  speaking  of  the  annual  per  cent  of  lapses.  The  letter  referred  to  by  counsel 
was  in  answer  to  an  inquiry  as  to  the  per  cent  per  annum,  and  is  here  inserted  :— 

"NEW  YORK,  April  25,  1876. 
"  W.  H.  BEERS,  ESQ.,  Arlington  Hotel,  Washington,  D.  C. 

"  DEAR  SIR, —  On  receipt  of  your  telegram  to  Mr.  Franklin,  I  went  to  the  Mutual 
Life  and  had  an  interview  with  Mr.  Lawton.  From  their  last  experience  [in]  inves 
tigations,  the  average  rate  of  terminations  from  all  causes  except  deaths  has  been, 
from  the  beginning  of  the  company,  not  far  from  five  per  cent ;  commencing  at  ten 
per  cent  the  first  year,  and  gradually  running  down. 

"  In  our  own  experience,  I  find  that  in  an  investigation  made  in  1869,  the  average 
rate  of  terminations  from  all  causes  up  to  that  time  had  been  about  6>£  per  cent. 
Calling  deaths  one  per  cent  would  leave  about  5^  per  cent  for  terminations  from 
other  causes ;  but  if  this  had  been  brought  down  to  date  I  think  the  result  in  both 
companies  would  have  been  a  higher  percentage,  as  I  find  by  the  New  York  report 
for  1875  that  the  average  ratio  of  terminations  by  surrenders  and  lapses,  in  all 
companies  combined,  was  about  10^  per  cent.  Of  course,  in  all  these  investiga 
tions  no  account  was  taken  of  '  not  taken  policies.'  The  ratios  are  on  those  only  on 
which  premiums  had  been  paid. 

"  Yours,  truly, 

"  P.  S.  LINCOLN." 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.       161 

In  a  mutual  company  like  the  New  York  Life,  the  profits,  from 
whatever  source,  —  and  I  have  indicated  the  two  original  sources 
of  revenue,  namely,  the  premiums  paid  by  those  who  continue 
till  death,  and  the  premiums  paid  on  policies  which  are  allowed 
to  lapse,  —  belong  to  the  insured.  Of  course  the  interest  that 
the  company  receive  on  their  investments  is  a  subsequent  mat 
ter;  but  all  the  profits  resulting  from  these  original  and  sec 
ondary  sources  of  income,  in  a  mutual  company  like  this,  find 
their  way  back  to  all  the  members  in  the  form  of  dividends, 
tinder  rules  and  regulations  adopted  by  the  company.  Now, 
the  courts  must,  I  take  it  — 

MR.  JUSTICE  BRADLEY.  I  think  that  consideration  is  one  that  would 
be  subject  to  this  criticism.  What  you  have  said  with  regard  to  the  ne 
cessary  basis  of  life  insurance  upon  the  average  of  human  life  is  undoubt 
edly  correct ;  but  with  regard  to  this  matter  of  lapses,  taking  any  one 
insurance  company,  it  has  no  right  to  presume  on  any  lapses  until  they 
occur.  At  the  commencement  of  the  war,  if  the  company  chose  to  con 
sider  these  Southern  policies  as  lapses  it  might  do  so,  but  it  was  at  its  own 
peril  that  it  did  so.  If  it  did  so,  it  would  have  for  that  year  a  large  profit 
exhibit  on  its  books  ;  but  that  was  its  own  fault ;  it  must  know  what  the 
law  is.  The  question  is,  What  is  the  law? 

Certainly,  your  Honor.  But  the  law  depends  upon  the  con 
tract  which  the  parties  made ;  and  that  contract  was  based  upon 
the  two  facts  I  have  stated.  Having  in  view  these  two  sources 
of  revenue  and  the  obligations  to  be  incurred  by  the  company, 
they  proceeded  to  make  this  contract  of  insurance,  which  must 
be  regarded  as  a  private  law.  This  law  the  court  is  called  upon 
to  construe  and  enforce ;  and  we  should,  in  the  first  place,  ex 
amine  its  terms  without  regard  to  the  war.  To  make  ourselves 
sure  that  we  understand  the  obligations  mutually  entered  into  by 
these  parties,  we  must  examine  the  contract  itself,  and  interpret 
it  by  the  intent  of  the  parties  that  made  it.  That  intent,  as  ex 
pressed  in  its  terms,  is  the  law  to  both  parties.  Beyond  that 
law  we  cannot  go.  This  court  has  said,  in  Dermott  v.  Jones,1 
that  they  will  not  interpolate  new  conditions,  but  will  hold  the 
parties  to  their  own  agreement.  The  court  will  not  make  con 
tracts.  Parties  are  bound  by  their  own  agreements.  If  they 
have  made  a  hard  contract,  they  must  abide  by  its  terms. 

Our  learned  friends  on  the  other  side  are  disturbed  about  the 
doctrine  of  conditions,  —  conditions  subsequent  and  conditions 

i  2  Wallace,  i. 

VOL.    II.  II 


1 62       THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

precedent.  But  it  is  our  duty  to  inquire  what  the  parties  them 
selves  have  stipulated  in  the  contract  between  them.  Turning 
to  pages  of  the  record  in  the  Seyms  case,  we  find  that  the 
parties  do  use  the  word  "  conditions  "  in  one  portion  of  their 
contract.  In  the  first  paragraph  they  declare  that  the  con 
tract  itself  is  made  in  consideration  of  a  sum  of  money  paid  in 
hand,  and  of  another  sum  to  be  paid  each  year.  I  ask  our 
learned  friends  on  the  other  side  whether  they  think  the  first 
payment  was  a  condition  precedent  to  insurance  or  not.  Sup 
pose,  after  the  terms  of  the  policy  had  been  agreed  upon,  the 
application  filed  and  approved,  and  the  policy  drawn  up  and 
ready  to  be  signed,  the- applicant  should  not  pay  the  first  pre 
mium  ;  or  suppose  that,  as  in  the  case  I  recently  had  the  honor 
to  argue  before  this  court,  he  should  offer  a  horse  instead  of  the 
money;  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  court  would  say,  as  it  said 
to  me  in  that  case,  "  The  delivery  of  the  horse  is  not  payment, 
and,  unless  the  first  premium  is  paid,  there  is  no  contract."  The 
very  language  of  the  policy  is,  that  this  contract  is  made  in  con 
sideration  of  the  first  and  subsequent  premiums.  No  payment, 
no  contract ;  and  the  subsequent  premiums  are  embraced  in  the 
same  clause,  as  an  inseparable  part  of  the  consideration  for  the 
creation  and  the  continued  existence  of  the  contract. 

MR.  JUSTICE  CLIFFORD.  If  the  party  died  before  the  expiration  of  the 
first  payment,  was  it  not  a  contract  ? 

Certainly;  for  it  declares  here  that  he  shall  be  insured  up  to 
the  23d  of  December,  at  noon.  But  the  payment  of  the  sec 
ond  premium  is  as  essential  to  the  life  of  the  contract  for  the 
second  year  as  the  first  was  for  the  first  year. 

MR.  JUSTICE  CLIFFORD.     So  you  divide  it  into  many  contracts. 

Yes,  your  Honor;  and  this  is  the  uniform  construction  given 
to  such  contracts  in  England.  Nor  has  there  been  any  different 
construction  in  this  country,  until  the  question  became  involved 
in  complications  growing  out  of  our  late  war. 

After  thus  stating  the  consideration  for  which  the  contract  is 
made,  the  parties  proceed  to  describe  some  of  its  subsequent 
terms  as  conditions.  They  say,  "  The  same  is  accepted  by  the 
assured  upon  these  express  conditions :  that  if  the  assured  shall 
pass  beyond  [certain  geographical  limits]  without  the  consent 
of  the  company,  or  enter  into  any  military  or  naval  service 


-    THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.        163 

whatever,  or  die  in  consequence  of  a  duel,  or  by  the  hands  of 
justice,  etc.,  etc.,  this  policy  shall  be  null  and  void."  These 
are,  in  fact,  conditions.  The  parties  so  denominate  them.  But 
none  of  these  provisions  are  in  controversy  in  this  case.  Fur 
ther  on  in  the  instrument  we  find  the  clauses  out  of  which 
this  suit  springs ;  and  they  are  clauses  which  the  parties  do 
not  call  conditions.  But  they  are  of  the  very  essence  and  sub 
stance  of  the  contract  itself.  This  is  the  language  employed 
by  the  parties  :  — 

"  And  it  is  understood  and  agreed  to  be  the  true  intent  and  meaning 
hereof,  that  if  the  declaration  made  by  the  said  Charlotte  Seyms,  and 
bearing  date  the  i3th  day  of  December,  A.  D.  1859,  and  upon  the  faith 
of  which  this  agreement  is  made,  shall  be  found  in  any  respect  untrue, 
then  and  in  such  case  this  policy  shall  be  null  and  void ;  or  in  case  the 
said  Charlotte  Seyms  shall  not  pay  the  said  premiums  on  or  before  the 
several  days  hereinbefore  mentioned  for  the  payment  thereof,  then  and 
in  every  such  case  the  said  company  shall  not  be  liable  to  the  payment  of 
the  sum  insured,  or  in  any  part  thereof,  and  this  policy  shall  cease  and 
determine." 

Now,  I  submit  to  your  Honors,  that,  in  the  above  paragraph, 
we  have  passed  beyond  the  chapter  of  conditions  set  forth  by 
the  parties  themselves,  and  have  reached  a  clause  which  de 
scribes  and  limits  the  risk  taken.  And  it  is  the  declared  intent 
of  the  parties  that  the  risk  taken  shall  be  limited  as  herein  de 
scribed.  They  fix  the  termination  of  the  contract ;  they  limit 
the  time  beyond  which  it  shall  not  exist,  namely,  the  time  when 
an  annual  premium  is  payable  and  is  not  paid.  I  refer  your 
Honors  to  the  American  Jurist,1  where  there  is  a  very  able 
article  on  "  Conditions  and  Limitations,"  and  the  distinction  be 
tween  them.  The  author,  after  defining  the  word  "  conditions," 
says :  "  A  limitation  is  conclusive  of  the  time  of  continuance, 

and  of  the  extent  of  the  estate  granted Limitations  are 

imperative.  They  fix  the  end  and  duration  of  an  estate."  We 
may  fairly  say  that  the  paragraphs  of  the  policy  now  under 
consideration  are  not  conditions  at  all,  but  are  the  two  limita 
tions  which  the  parties  have  agreed  upon  to  define  the  extent 
of  the  risk ;  one  relating  to  the  truthfulness  of  the  representa 
tions  made  in  the  application  for  insurance,  the  other  relating  to 
the  time  at  which  the  contract  shall  cease  and  determine  if  the 
payment  be  not  made. 

1  Vol.  XL  pp.  42,  43. 


1 64        THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

Now,  my  colleague  cited  the  case  of  House  v.  Mullen,1  just 
reported,  in  which  it  appears  that  a  false  statement  had  been 
made  by  the  insured  in  his  application.  But  although  that  state 
ment  was  against  himself  and  favorable  to  the  company,  your 
Honors  held  that  he  could  not  be  permitted  to  make  a  false 
statement  even  against  himself;  and  that  the  contract,  by  its  own 
terms,  made  the  policy  void  in  that  case.  Thus  your  Honors 
have  construed  one  half  of  the  paragraph  which  defines  and  lim 
its  the  risk.  But  the  paragraph  contains  two  limitations ;  one, 
that  the  statements  of  the  applicant  shall  be  true,  and  the  other, 
that  he  shall  pay.  You  have  already  decided  that,  in  case  the 
one  failed,  the  contract  was  void.  Is  it  not  clear  that  the  same 
doctrine  should  be  applied  to  the  next  clause,  which  is  separated 
from  the  first  only  by  a  semicolon,  and  is  really  a  part  of  the 
same  sentence?  They  must  be  construed  together.  If  this 
view  be  correct,  it  is  unnecessary  for  us  to  discuss  the  doctrine 
of  conditions  in  order  to  determine  whether  the  payment  of  the 
annual  premiums  is  a  condition  precedent  or  a  condition  subse 
quent. 

But  our  opponents  insist  upon  discussing  the  doctrine  of 
conditions,  and  we  accept  their  challenge.  They  will  hardly 
deny  that,  up  to  the  time  when  life  insurance  contracts  were 
affected  by  our  late  war,  few,  if  any,  leading  decisions  of  any 
courts  at  home  or  abroad  can  be  found  in  which  the  payment 
of  the  annual  premium  is  called  a  condition  subsequent  to  the 
continuance  of  the  policy.  On  the  contrary,  the  whole  current 
of  authorities,  until  these  very  recent  cases,  sweeps  the  other 
way  with  the  force  of  a  torrent.  From  the  case  of  Want  v. 
Blunt,2  where  Lord  Ellenborough  distinctly  declared  that  the 
payment  of  the  quarterly  premium  was  a  condition  precedent 
to  the  continuance  of  the  contract,  down  through  the  other 
cases  cited  in  our  brief,  there  is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  We 
insist  that,  if  we  are  to  consider  these  clauses  as  conditions  at 
all,  we  are  in  the  current  of  authorities  which  brings  us  to  the 
inevitable  conclusion  that  payment  of  premiums  on  the  day 
named  is  a  condition  precedent  to  the  continuation  of  the  con 
tract.  But  whether  this  provision  of  the  policy  be  considered 
a  limitation  of  the  risk,  or  a  condition  precedent,  the  practica 
ble  result  will  be  the  same.  The  premium  was  not  paid,  and 
hence  the  contract  "  ceased  and  determined."  The  parties  to 

1  22  Wallace,  42.  2  12  East>  ,5^ 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.       165 

the  contract  are  not  to  be  excused  by  any  hardship  that  may 
result  from  it;  nor  are  they  to  be  excused  from  performance 
of  the  contract  by  the  act  of  God,  or  of  the  law.  On  this 
point  several  authorities  are  cited  in  our  brief,  to  one  of  which 
I  desire  to  call  special  attention,  viz.  the  case  of  the  Earl  of 
Shrewsbury  v.  Scott,  decided  by  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench 
in  1859. 

Far  back  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Henry 
VI.  created  the  earldom  of  Shrewsbury,  to  which  were  annexed 
immense  estates  in  half  a  dozen  counties  in  England.  The 
earldom  was  to  descend  in  the  male  line,  and  the  estates  were 
to  follow  the  title.  But  in  the  year  1700,  one  of  the  earls, 
having  resolved  never  to  marry,  made  a  deed  of  settlement  to 
adjust  the  descent  of  the  title  and  the  estate.  Doubts  were 
however  raised  as  to  his  power  to  make  such  settlement ;  the 
case  was  taken  to  Parliament,  and  an  act  was  passed  in  1718 
ratifying  his  settlement.  It  was  a  period  of  excitement  in  Eng 
land  on  the  Catholic  question,  and  a  proviso  was  added  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  and  became  a  part  of  the  act,  that  no  person 
holding  the  earldom  should  have  power  to  alienate  the  estates. 
But  it  was  further  provided,  that,  if  within  six  months  after  the 
heir  became  eighteen  years  of  age  he  should  make  the  declara 
tion  and  take  the  oaths  prescribed  in  the  act  of  30  Charles  II., 
declaring  himself  a  Protestant,  renouncing  the  Catholic  religion, 
and  should  continue  to  be  a  Protestant  after  he  was  twenty-one, 
he  might  alienate  them.  This  settlement  stood  undisturbed  for 
a  hundred  and  forty  years.  The  later  agitation  of  the  Catholic 
question  swept  away  all  laws  prescribing  oaths  for  Catholics. 
But  in  the  year  1856,  Bertram  Arthur,  the  seventeenth  earl,  died 
without  issue;  and  by  going  back  two  centuries  a  collateral 
branch  of  the  family  was  found  who  succeeded  to  the  title. 
Just  before  Arthur  died,  he  executed  a  disentailing  deed,  by 
which  he  transferred  to  Scott,  the  defendant,  a  portion  of  his 
estates.  The  successor  of  Arthur  brought  an  action  of  eject 
ment;  and  when  the  case  came  on  for  hearing,  the  question 
arose  whether,  under  the  act  of  1718,  the  late  Earl  had  the 
power  to  alienate  his  land,  as  he  attempted  to  do  in  the  dis 
entailing  deed.  The  counsel  for  the  plaintiff  insisted  that  the 
taking  of  the  oaths  prescribed  in  the  act  of  1718  was  a  condi 
tion  precedent  to  the  authority  of  the  Earl  to  alienate  his  estates. 
The  defendant  responded,  that  compliance  with  that  law  had 


1 66        THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

been  rendered  impossible  by  subsequent  legislation;  that  the 
act  of  30  Charles  II.  had  been  repealed ;  that  Parliament  had 
made  it  impossible  for  him  to  take  the  oaths.  On  this  question 
the  Chief  Justice  said :  — 

"  It  is  urged  ....  that  the  performance  of  the  condition  has  become 
impossible.  Assuming  this  for  a  moment,  it  seems  to  me  to  follow,  as  a 
necessary  consequence  in  point  of  law,  that  alienation  has  become  im 
possible.  There  is  here  a  condition  precedent  upon  alienation,  and  it 
is  elementary  knowledge  that  a  condition  precedent  is  a  thing  which 
cannot  be  got  over." 

The  court  then  quotes  the  well-known  passage  from  Black- 
stone  on  the  subject  of  conditions,  and  also  the  following  from 
Egerton  v.  The  Earl  of  Brownlow :  — 

" '  Supposing  it  to  be  illegal,  if  it  be  a  contingency  or  condition  pre 
cedent,  and  the  event  does  not  happen,  or  if  it  be  impossible,  and  there 
fore  cannot  happen,  the  party  never  obtains  the  estate ;  if  it  be  a  condi 
tion  subsequent,  he  never  loses  what  he  has  got.'  (4  House  of  Lords 
Cases,  I.  120.) 

"This  I  take  to  be  the  true  rule  of  law  upon  this  subject,"  the  court 
continues.  "  Now,  here  we  have  an  estate  tail  from  which  the  incident 
of  alienability  is  taken  away  by  positive  enactment,  but  to  which  aliena 
bility  may  be  restored  upon  the  performance  of  a  condition  precedent. 
If  the  performance  of  the  condition  precedent  is  prevented,  no  matter 
how,  and  the  condition  does  not  take  effect,  that  which  was  conditioned 
upon  it  cannot  possibly  take  effect  either.  It  cannot  therefore  avail  the 
defendants  to  say  that  the  condition  has  become  impossible  [by  law]. 
....  If  impossibility  of  performance  of  the  condition  has  supervened, 
....  the  power  to  alienate  is  gone."1 

The  case  is  one  full  of  historic  interest ;  and  the  doctrine  is 
clearly  stated,  that,  even  when  the  performance  of  a  condition 
precedent  is  made  impossible  by  law,  the  party  not  performing 
has  no  remedy. 

I  refer  your  Honors  to  another  case,  not  mentioned  in  our 
brief,  —  the  case  of  Barker  v.  Hodgson.2  It  appears  in  this 
case  that  the  owner  of  a  ship  declared  on  a  charter-party  of 
affreightment,  made  between  himself  and  a  shipper  in  Liver 
pool,  that  he  was  to  go  to  Gibraltar  and  deliver  a  cargo  there, 
and  then  load,  take  back,  and  deliver  another  cargo  in  Liver 
pool.  The  running  time  was  to  be  sixty  days.  He  went  out 
to  Gibraltar,  anchored  in  the  stream,  and  landed  his  cargo  by 
1  6  C.  B.  N.  S.  176,  178.  a  3  Maule  and  Selwyn,  267. 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.        167 

means  of  a  lighter;  but  before  he  had  loaded  his  return  cargo 
a  pestilence  broke  out  in  Gibraltar,  and  under  the  local  statute 
it  was  made  unlawful  for  anybody  to  pass  out  from  the  wharf 
to  the  ship,  or  for  the  ship  to  come  into  the  dock.  The  law  had 
reared  an  impassable  barrier  around  Gibraltar,  and  between  him 
and  the  wharf.  He  waited  until  the  sixty  days  had  elapsed; 
and,  hoisting  sail,  returned  to  Liverpool,  claiming  that  the  law 
had  intervened  to  make  it  impossible  for  him  to  carry  out  his 
part  of  the  contract.  After  stating  the  case,  Lord  Ellenborough 
said :  • — 

"  Perhaps  it  is  too  much  to  say  that  the  freighter  was  compellable 
to  load  his  cargo ;  but,  if  he  was  unable  to  do  the  thing,  is  he  not  an 
swerable  for  it  upon  his  covenant  ?  Is  not  the  freighter  the  adventurer, 
who  chalks  out  the  voyage,  and  is  to  furnish,  at  all  events,  the  subject 
matter  out  of  which  freight  is  to  accrue  ?  The  question  here  is,  on  which 
side  the  burthen  is  to  fall.  If  indeed  the  performance  of  this  covenant 
had  been  rendered  unlawful  by  the  government  of  this  country,  the 
contract  would  have  been  dissolved  on  both  sides,  and  this  defendant, 
inasmuch  as  he  had  been  thus  compelled  to  abandon  his  contract,  would 
have  been  excused  for  the  non-performance  of  it,  and  not  liable  to  dam 
ages.  But  if,  in  consequence  of  events  which  happen  at  a  foreign  port, 
the  freighter  is  prevented  from  furnishing  a  loading  there  which  he  has 
contracted  to  furnish,  the  contract  is  neither  dissolved  nor  is  he  excused 
for  not  performing  it,  but  must  answer  in  damages.  "  l 

In  other  words,  he  was  to  deliver  his  outward  cargo  and  bring 
another  back  to  Liverpool,  as  a  condition  precedent  to  receiving 
payment  on  the  contract;  and  though  the  lex  loci  made  per 
formance  impossible,  yet  such  impossibility  was  no  excuse  for 
non-performance,  and  was  so  held  by  the  court. 

But  it  is  quite  clear  that  there  was  no  such  impossibility  in 
the  present  case.  We  have  cited  in  our  brief  the  dates  at  which 
the  governments  of  the  Confederate  States  and  of  the  United 
States  forbade  intercourse  between  the  belligerents,  and  also  the 
dates  at  which  the  United  States  invited  all  its  loyal  citizens  who 
proposed  to  adhere  to  the  government  to  come  within  the  Union 
lines.  At  the  same  time,  those  in  the  South  who  elected  to  ad 
here  to  the  Union  were  ordered,  by  the  Confederate  authorities, 
to  leave  the  Rebel  lines ;  and  it  was  possible  and  practicable  at 
that  time  for  any  citizen  who  chose  to  adhere  to  the  Union  dur 
ing  the  struggle  to  put  himself  in  a  position  where,  without 

1  3  Maule  and  Selwyn,  270,  271. 


1 68       THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

obstruction  or  violation  of  law,  he  might  keep  alive  his  contract 
of  insurance.  This  court  strongly  intimated,  in  the  case  of  The 
William  Bagaley,1  and  the  case  of  Mrs.  Alexander's  Cotton,2  what 
the  duty  of  the  loyal  citizen  was  in  such  a  situation.  It  may  per 
haps  be  going  too  far  to  say  that  it  was  the  duty  of  every  person 
to  abandon  his  property  and  leave  the  home  of  his  birth ;  but 
we  are  now  discussing  the  possibility  or  impossibility  of  his 
saving  his  contract  by  so  doing.  And  we  hold  that  our  friends 
on  the  other  side  cannot  show  that  it  was  impossible  for  their 
clients  to  put  themselves  in  a  situation  to  keep  their  contracts 
alive.  They  insist,  first,  that  they  were  under  no  obligation  to 
make  performance  possible ;  secondly,  that  they  have  lost  noth 
ing  by  non-performance ;  and,  finally,  they  propose  to  throw 
upon  us  all  the  burdens  resulting  from  their  own  failure. 

Thus  far  I  have  sought  to  interpret  the  contract  by  the  plain 
intent  of  the  parties  who  made  it ;  to  ascertain  the  conditions 
and  limitations  which  they  imposed  upon  each  other ;  and  have 
asked  your  Honors  to  enforce  that  intent  in  accordance  with  the 
conditions  and  within  the  limitations  of  the  instrument  itself. 
The  parties  declare  it  to  be  their  intent,  that,  if  the  money  be 
not  paid  before  the  day  and  hour  specified,  the  contract  of  in 
surance  ceases  and  determines.  The  parties  have  set  up  that 
limit  for  themselves,  and  either  one  is  estopped  from  asking  this 
court  to  change  the  contract  by  taking  away  that  limit  or  by 
setting  up  any  other. 

Our  learned  friends  say  that  the  late  war  was  a  surprise  to 
everybody;  that  the  parties  did  not  have  in  their  minds  the 
thought  or  the  possibility  of  war;  and  that  the  court  should 
therefore  interpolate  into  the  contract  such  modifications  as  a 
state  of  war  requires.  I  invite  our  friends  to  examine  the  con 
tract  more  closely,  to  see  whether  the  parties  did  not  have  the 
idea  of  war  in  their  minds  when  they  made  it. 

The  policy  itself  shows  that  the  parties  attempted  to  state  ex 
haustively,  both  affirmatively  and  negatively,  the  conditions  and 
contingencies  which  might  affect  the  obligation  to  insure ;  and 
they  distinctly  allude  to  a  state  of  war.  They  declare  that,  if 
the  assured  shall  enter  any  military  or  naval  service  (the  militia 
not  in  actual  service  excepted),  this  policy  shall  be  null  and 
void.  Can  it  be  doubted  that,  in  making  this  provision,  the  par 
ties  contemplated  a  state  of  military  and  naval  activity,  —  a  state 
1  5  Wallace,  377.  2  2  Wallace,  421. 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.       169 

of  war?  The  exception  of  the  militia  not  in  actual  service 
strengthens  this  conclusion.  It  is  fair  to  assume  that  these  par 
ties  provided  for  peace  and  for  war.  It  is  fair  to  presume  that 
they  made  a  contract  exhausting  the  possibilities  of  the  situa 
tions  in  which  they  might  be  placed ;  and  having  so  exhausted 
them,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  court  can  now  interpolate 
into  the  contract  any  conditions  that  the  parties  themselves  did 
not  provide. 

My  learned  friend  who  has  just  addressed  the  court  has  re 
ferred  to  the  case  of  Semmes  v.  Hartford  Insurance  Company,1 
as  sustaining  his  position  that  war  only  suspends  a  contract  of 
life  insurance.  It  needs  but  a  glance  at  that  case  to  discover 
that  the  issue  was  wholly  confined  to  the  remedy  for  collecting 
a  debt.  True,  the  debt  grew  out  of  a  contract  of  life  insurance; 
but  the  loss  had  occurred  before  the  war  began,  and  the  repre 
sentatives  of  the  deceased  had  a  vested  right  to  recover  on  the 
policy.  The  decision  of  the  court  was  clearly  in  accordance 
with  the  acknowledged  rule  of  law,  that  debts  are  not  forfeited, 
but  that  the  remedies  for  the  collection  of  debts  of  belligerents 
are  suspended,  by  war.  The  case  turned  upon  a  clause  in  the 
policy  which  provided  that  no  suit  or  action  should  be  brought 
to  recover  on  a  policy,  unless  brought  within  twelve  months 
after  the  loss  should  occur.  The  loss  had  happened,  the  debt 
had  been  incurred,  before  the  war;  but  as  the  war  began  before 
the  twelve  months  expired,  the  court  held  that  the  executors  of 
the  insured  could  recover  by  bringing  suit  within  twelve  months 
after  the  return  of  peace.  That  decision  does  not  at  all  apply 
to  a  case  of  life  insurance,  where  the  loss  occurred  after  the 
war  began.  The  case  now  before  the  court  does  not  involve  the 
question  of  debt.  Nothing  was  due  to  the  insured  when  the 
war  began.  He  was  not  compelled  to  pay  his  annual  premiums. 
He  had  the  option  to  pay  and  revive  his  insurance,  but  of  that 
option  the  company  had  no  control. 

The  effect  of  war  on  the  business  relations  of  belligerents 
cannot  be  more  clearly  and  tersely  stated  than  it  has  been  done 
in  Montgomery  v.  United  States,  where  the  court  says :  — 

"  It  is  certain  that  '  every  kind  of  trading  or  commercial  dealing  or 
intercourse,  whether  by  transmission  of  money '  "  —  I  emphasize  that, 
because  it  applies  to  a  case  like  this,  — " '  whether  by  transmission  of 
money  or  goods,  or  orders  for  the  delivery  of  either  between  two  coun- 

13  Wallace,  158. 


1 70        THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.  > 

tries  (at  war) ,  directly  or  indirectly,  or  through  the  intervention  of  third 
persons  or  partnerships,  or  by  contracts  '  "  —  I  emphasize  that  —  "  '  in 
any  form,  looking  to  or  involving  such  transmission,'  is  prohibited.  If 
this  be  allowed,  the  enemy  is  benefited,  and  his  property  is  protected 
from  seizure  or  confiscation."  1 

I  cite  this  paragraph  to  show  how  great  is  the  difference,  in 
their  relations  to  war,  between  a  debt  and  an  unexecuted  con 
tract  of  life  insurance.  We  admit  that  one  part  of  the  policy  is 
an  executed  contract,  namely,  the  insurance  for  the  year  that 
was  begun  before  the  war,  and  for  which  the  premium  had  been 
paid.  If  the  insured  had  died  before  the  expiration  of  that 
year,  even  after  the  war  began,  I  have  no  doubt  the  company 
would  be  liable  for  the  loss ;  for  it  would  have  been  a  debt  due 
under  an  executed  contract.  Nothing  further  was  needed,  on 
either  side,  except  to  make  the  proof  of  loss.  The  war  sus 
pended  the  machinery  by  which  the  proof  could  be  made  and 
the  debt  collected.  But  that  executed  part  of  the  contract  is 
not  at  all  involved  in  this  case.  The  question  now  in  issue 
grows  out  of  the  second,  or  executory  part  of  the  contract,  — 
that  part  which  defines  the  limitation  of  the  risk,  which  declares 
that,  if  the  payment  of  premium  is  not  made  on  a  certain  day, 
the  policy  shall  cease  and  determine.  The.  payment  of  the 
premium  is  the  life  of  the  policy.  During  the  year  which  is 
covered  by  payment  already  made,  it  was  a  living,  an  executed 
contract;  that  part  which  permits  a  future  insurance  upon  future 
payment  is  an  executory  contract. 

MR.  JUSTICE  CLIFFORD.  -But  there  was  no  necessity  for  a  new  contract 
at  the  expiration  of  the  first  year. 

The  form  of  a  contract  exists,  but  its  life  is  gone  whenever 
it  strikes  against  the  hour  of  the  day  when  payment  must  be 
made  in  order  to  protract  its  life. 

MR.  JUSTICE  CLIFFORD.     But  it  had  life  until  it  received  the  blow. 

Certainly,  your  Honor;  but  I  would  not  say  it  was  killed  by 
the  blow.  It  lived  and  had  its  being  by  virtue  of  payment 
already  made.  The  second  payment,  made  at  the  time  pre 
scribed,  would  have  breathed  into  it  the  life  of  another  year; 
if  not  made,  the  contract  died  of  inanition,  expired  by  its  own 
limitation. 

1  15  Wallace,  400. 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.        171 

The  contract  now  under  consideration  lived  until  the  noon  of 
December  23,  1861.  Up  to  that  moment  it  was  an  executed  con 
tract;  but  all  else  was  executory,  was  contingent  upon  payment, 
—  payment  at  the  time  prescribed, — prepayment.  Was  it  pos 
sible  for  one  who  had  adhered  to  the  Rebellion,  and  remained 
within  the  Rebel  lines,  to  make  that  payment,  December  23, 
1861?  Manifestly  not,  without  intercourse.  Several  acts  of 
intercourse  must  necessarily  have  been  performed  in  order  to 
give  life  to  the  policy  for  another  year;  money  must  have  been 
transmitted,  receipts  delivered,  letters  sent;  in  short,  the  con 
tract  must  have  been  renewed ;  and  this  court  has  said  that  all 
such  intercourse  is  prohibited  by  war. 

My  learned  friend  on  the  other  side  insists  that  the  cases  cited 
in  our  brief  from  12  East  and  8  House  of  Lords  Cases  are 
based  upon  conditions  precedent,  and  do  not  apply  to  this  case. 
This  is  begging  one  of  the  questions  at  issue.  But  these  cases 
were  not  quoted  for  the  purpose  of  proving  that  payment  in  this 
case  is  a  condition  precedent.  They  were  quoted  for  the  pur 
pose  of  showing,  by  the  unchallenged  authority  of  the  English 
courts,  that  a  contract  of  life  insurance  is  a  contract  from  year 
to  year,  or  from  quarter  to  quarter;  that  it  was  not  one,  but 
many;  a  series,  consisting  of  one  actual  and  many  possible  con 
tracts.  In  the  House  of  Lords  case,  the  payments  were  to  be 
made  quarterly;  and  the  court  held  that  it  was  a  contract  for 
three  months,  and  quarter  by  quarter,  if  premiums  were  paid. 
It  was  not  of  one  piece,  like  an  iron  rod,  but  in  sections,  like 
the  vertebrae  of  a  snake. 

In  order  to  understand  more  clearly  the  character  of  this  con 
tract,  let  us  consider  the  effect  upon  the  parties  of  a  decision 
that  these  policies  were  only  suspended  during  the  war,  to  be 
revived  and  enforced  on  the  return  of  peace.  Of  all  the  people 
in  the  South  who  were  insured  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  a 
certain  per  cent — a  large  per  cent  —  would  have  allowed  their 
policies  to  lapse;  and  their  premiums  already  paid  would  have 
belonged  to  the  company.  These  lapses  happen  in  accordance 
with  the  inexorable  law  of  averages,  and  are  a  recognized  ele 
ment  in  the  business  of  life  insurance.  Now,  if  the  court  hold 
that  the  contract  was  only  suspended  during  the  war,  it  will  fol 
low  that  every  death  occurring  during  the  war,  among  those 
who  should  voluntarily  allow  their  policies  to  lapse,  must  be 
paid  for  by  the  company  insuring  ;  for,  in  every  such  case, 


172       THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

executors  will  tender  the  back  premiums  and  demand  payment. 
Thus  the  court  would  compel  the  company  to  pay  losses  that 
happened  long  after  the  voluntary  abandonment  of  the  policy 
by  the  insured ;  and  thus  the  company  would  lose  all  the  in 
come  that  flows  into  its  treasury  from  one  of  its  two  sources 
of  revenue.  By  such  a  construction  dead  men  are  to  be  treated 
as  though  they  were  alive,  and,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  had 
elected  to  pay  back  premiums  and  continue  the  insurance. 
This  the  living  will  not  do.  They  know  it  will  be  cheaper  to 
take  out  new  policies  than  to  pay  the  arrears  of  the  old  ones. 
But  the  policies  of  the  dead  have  drawn  prizes ;  and,  of  course, 
their  executors  will  elect  to  pay  for  the  fortunate  tickets.  This 
construction  interpolates  into  the  contract  a  provision  which  no 
insurance  officer  outside  of  an  insane  asylum  would  ever  dream 
of  making,  —  a  provision  which  allows  dead  men  to  determine 
whether  their  policies  shall  be  renewed  or  abandoned.  Now, 
upon  the  supposition  that  the  war  had  lasted  twenty  years  in 
stead  of  four,  the  evil  resulting  from  such  a  construction  would 
be  measureless ;  or,  rather,  it  would  ruin  the  company,  and  carry 
down  with  it  all  its  policies,  North  and  South.  This  construc 
tion  would  not  be  proposed  by  our  learned  friends,  had  they 
not  confounded  an  executory  contract  with  an  ascertained  debt. 

To  exhibit  in  another  way  the  broad  distinction  between  this 
kind  of  contract  and  a  debt,  I  refer  to  the  question  of  agency. 
It  is  insisted  that  we  were  bound  to  keep  an  agent  in  the  South 
during  the  war.  For  what  purpose?  To  receive  premiums? 
If  so,  his  business  would  have  consisted  in  the  work  of  convert 
ing  suspended  policies  into  debts.  Every  premium  received  or 
tendered  would  instantly  have  become  the  property  of  a  bellige 
rent,  and,  under  the  confiscation  laws  of  the  Confederacy, 
would  have  been  swept  into  the  Rebel  treasury.  Thus  every 
premium  would  aid  in  filling  the  coffers  of  the  Confederate 
government;  and  yet  our  friends  on  the  other  side  charge  us 
with  breaking  the  contract,  because  we  did  not  send  an  agent 
to  Mississippi,  not  only  to  put  our  revenues  where  we  should 
lose  them,  but  to  place  them  in  the  treasury  of  a  hostile  govern 
ment.  This  view  of  the  case  demonstrates  how  utterly  impossi 
ble  it  was  to  keep  this  contract  alive  during  the  war. 

But  suppose  the  contract  was  only  suspended  during  the  war. 
The  insured  in  both  these  cases  died  while  it  was  suspended,  — 
before  it  revived.  Can  they  now  take  the  benefit?  Can  they 


THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE.       173 

take  the  benefit  of  a  contract  that  was  dead  when  they  died? 
If  anybody  can  take  the  benefit  of  such  a  suspended  contract, 
it  must  be  one  who  lived  beyond  the  period  of  suspension,  and 
after  its  revival  tendered  his  arrears  of  premium.  Such  a  case 
would  present  a  question  very  different  from  the  one  now  under 
consideration. 

But,  if  your  Honors  hold  that  this  contract  was  only  suspended 
during  the  war,  two  results  will  follow :  first,  the  company  re 
ceives  not  one  dollar  from  those  policy-holders  who  survived 
the  war,  for  they  are  unwilling,  and  the  company  has  no  power 
to  compel  them,  to  revive  their  policies ;  secondly,  the  company 
must  pay  every  policy  whose  holder  died,  even  though  he  was 
one  of  that  large  number  who  would  have  allowed  his  policy  to 
lapse.  I  cannot  believe  that  your  Honors  will  thus  interpolate 
into  the  contract  conditions  that  no  company  ever  did,  or  ever 
would,  propose  or  tolerate. 

Now,  I  have  no  sympathy  with  those  arguments  and  decis 
ions  in  favor  of  the  insurance  companies  which  are  founded  on 
drums  and  cannon,  —  on  the  assumption  that  anything  which 
hurts  rebels,  and  helps  defenders  of  the  flag,  should  be  looked 
on  with  favor.  This  contract  should  be  studied  by  the  white 
light  of  the  law,  and  by  the  aid  of  all  the  equities  which  this 
court  is  authorized  to  employ.  If  the  court  think  that  there 
are  hardships  in  this  case  which  they  have  a  right  to  consider,— 
if  the  court  think  that  there  are  equities  in  either  case  which 
they  can  fairly  administer  (and  one  of  these  is  a  case  of  equity), 
—  if  the  court  find  a  place  to  apply  the  rules  of  equity  so  as  to 
save  the  policy-holders  something  for  what  they  have  already 
paid,  let  us  inquire  what  rule  of  adjustment  ought  to  be  adopted. 

In  this  connection,  I  take  the  liberty  of  referring  to  the  fifth 
point  made  in  the  brief  of  my  learned  friend,  Mr.  Hinckley, 
in  the  case  of  the  New  York  Life  Insurance  Company  v.  Hen- 
dren,  argued  last  week,  where  the  several  rules  of  adjustment 
are  stated.  The  substance  of  that  point  is  this :  if  the  court 
will  not  hold  that  war  destroys  a  contract  originally  valid  so 
far  as  to  forfeit  all  the  rights  of  the  insured  under  it,  because 
the  war  makes  it  impossible  for  him  to  keep  it  alive  by  pay 
ment,  then  let  the  scales  of  justice  hang  even,  and  do  not 
construe  impossibility  to  pay  into  a  right  to  pay  or  not  to  pay, 
as  he  chooses,  at  some  future,  indefinite  time.  If  there  be  no 
forfeiture,  then  at  least  there  should  be  no  extension  of  a  privi- 


174      THE  REBELLION  AND  LIFE  INSURANCE. 

lege.  To  allow  the  insured  the  surrender  value  of  the  policy 
as  it  stood  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  would  avoid  both  ex 
tremes. 

If  any  form  of  equitable  adjustment  should  be  found  lawful 
and  right,  I  venture  to  suggest  that  the  court  ought  to  follow 
the  rule  of  partnerships.  A  mutual  life  insurance  company  is 
virtually  a  partnership,  —  a  sort  of  incorporated  partnership. 
And  your  Honors  have  decided  again  and  again,  that  a  part 
nership  between  belligerents  is  dissolved  by  war.  The  property 
of  the  partners  is  not  forfeited,  but  the  power  to  distribute  it  is 
suspended.  Some  of  the  parties  are  within  the  jurisdiction  of 
one  belligerent,  and  others  are  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
other.  The  partnership  is  not  suspended  to  revive  again  on 
the  return  of  peace,  but  is  dissolved  by  the  fact  of  war.  Nor 
can  its  affairs  be  settled  during  the  war.  But  on  the  return  of 
peace,  the  court  will  require  a  statement  of  accounts,  just  as 
they  stood  on  the  day  of  the  dissolution.  If  this  analogy  be  fol 
lowed,  it  would  be  held  that  war  dissolved  contracts  of  insurance, 
and  that  each  policy-holder  whose  policy  was  alive  when  the 
war  began  would  be  entitled  to  the  surrender  value  of  the  policy 
at  that  date.  This  would  avoid,  on  the  part  of  the  insured, 
the  hardship  of  involuntary  forfeiture  of  premiums  already  paid, 
and  also  the  injustice  of  requiring  the  company  to  pay  on  all 
lapsed  policies,  whether  voluntary  or  involuntary. 

There  is  no  ground  for  the  assumption  that,  on  the  day  when 
the  war  struck  this  policy,  the  insured  had  a  vested  right  to  the 
whole  amount  for  which  he  had  been  insured.  Our  learned 
friend  spoke  of  his  client  as  holding  a  vested  right.  Did  he 
mean  a  vested  right  to  eight  thousand  dollars?  Certainly  not 
when  the  war  began ;  certainly  not  on  the  day  he  failed  to  make 
payment.  But  if  your  Honors  determine  that,  after  the  day  on 
which  the  war  struck  the  policy  with  paralysis,  you  cannot  re 
vive  it  for  his  benefit,  the  most  that  can  then  be  done  for  him 
will  be  to  give  him  its  surrender  value  on  the  day  of  its  paraly 
sis,  in  accordance  with  some  one  of  the  four  rules  so  ably 
stated  by  Mr.  Hinckley. 

And  now,  thanking  your  H'onors  for  the  patient  attention 
with  which  you  have  listened  to  this  long  discussion,  I  leave 
the  case  for  your  consideration  and  judgment. 


CURRENCY  AND  THE  PUBLIC  FAITH 

SPEECH   DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 

APRIL  9,  1874. 


ON  the  29th  of  January,  1874,  Mr.  Horace  Maynard,  of  Tennessee, 
reported  from  the  Committee  on  Banking  and  Currency  a  bill  "  to 
amend  the  several  acts  providing  a  national  currency,  and  to  establish 
free  banking,  and  for  other  purposes."  These  were  its  more  important 
provisions  :  — 

1.  Section  31  of  the  National  Banking  Act  of  June  3,  1864,  to  be  so 
amended  that  the  banks  shall  not  hereafter  be  required  to  keep  on  hand 
any  amount  of  money  whatever  by  reason  of  the  amount  of  their  respect 
ive  circulations ;  but  the  money  reserves  required  to  be  kept  at  all  times 
on  hand  to  be  determined  by  the  amount  of  deposits,  as  provided  by 
said  section  of  said  act. 

2.  Section  21  of  said  act,  and  the  amendments  thereto,  so  far  as  they 
restricted  the  circulation  of  the  banks,  to  be  repealed. 

3.  Every  national  bank  to  keep  and  have  on  deposit  in  the  treasury 
of  the  United  States,  in  lawful  money  of  the  United  States,  a  sum  equal  to 
five  per  cent  of  its  circulation,  to  be  held  and  used  only  for  the  redemp 
tion  of  such  circulation.     The  entire  amount  of  United  States  notes  out 
standing  and  in  circulation  at  any  one  time  not  to  exceed  the  sum  of 
$400,000,000. 

4.  The  banks  to   keep  their  lawful  money  reserves  within  their  own 
vaults  at  the  places  where  their  operations  of  discount  and  deposit  are 
carried  on. 

5.  Section  8  of  the  Maynard  bill  ran  as  follows:  "That  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury  is  hereby  authorized  and  directed  to  issue,  at  the 
beginning  of  each  and  every  month  from  and  including  July,  eighteen 
hundred  and  seventy-four,  two  millions  of  United  States  notes  not  bear 
ing  interest,  payable  in  gold  two  years  after  date,  of  such  denominations 
as  he  shall  deem  expedient,  not  less  than  ten  dollars  each,  in  exchange, 
and  as  a  substitute,  for  the  same   amount  of  the  United   States  notes 
now  in  circulation,  which  shall  be  cancelled  and  destroyed,  and  not  re- 


176  CURRENCY  AND    THE  PUBLIC  FAITH. 

issued.  And  any  excess  of  gold  in,  or  hereafter  coming  into,  the  Treas 
ury  of  the  United  States,  after  payment  of  interest  on  the  public  debt, 
and  supplying  any  deficiency  in  the  revenues  provided  to  meet  the  cur 
rent  expenses  of  the  government,  shall  hereafter  be  retained  as  a  reserve 
for  the  redemption  of  such  notes." 

April  9,  Mr.  Garfield  entered  his  protest  against  the  bill  in  the  follow 
ing  speech.  April  10,  Sections  7  and  8  were  stricken  out  on  motion 
of  the  friends  of  the  bill.  April  14,  the  bill  as  thus  amended  passed  the 
House.  The  bill  now  went  to  the  Senate,  where  it  was  amended.  Next, 
it  passed  through  the  hands  of  two  conference  committees.  After  un 
dergoing  many  changes,  more  or  less  important,  and  losing  some  of  its 
original  features  and  taking  on  new  ones,  it  passed  both  houses,  and  was 
approved,  June  22,  1874.  The  banks  were  relieved  of  some  of  their 
former  limitations  and  restrictions,  and  the  maximum  of  United  States 
notes  was  fixed  at  $382,000,000. 

At  the  same  time  that  this  bill  was  under  discussion  in  the  House,  im 
portant  financial  propositions  of  a  somewhat  analogous  character  were 
pending  in  the  Senate.  Especial  attention  may  be  drawn  to  one. 
March  23,  Senator  Sherman  reported  Senate  Bill  No.  617,  entitled  "A 
Bill  to  provide  for  the  Redemption  and  Reissue  of  United  States  Notes, 
and  for  free  Banking."  This  bill  passed  both  houses,  an.d  was  vetoed  by 
President  Grant,  April  22,  1874.  These  facts  explain  Mr.  Garfield's 
reference  in  his  second  sentence  to  the  "  four  months  of  debate  in  the 
Senate,  and  nearly  three  weeks  of  debate  in  the  House." 


"  Thou  shalt  have  a  perfect  and  just  weight,  a  perfect  and  just  measure  shalt  them  have : 
that  thy  days  may  be  lengthened  in  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee." — Deut. 
xxv.  15. 

"  A  false  balance  is  abomination  to  the  Lord  ;  but  a  just  weight  is  his  delight."  —  Proverbs 
xi.  i. 

"  Capital  may  be  produced  by  industry,  and  accumulated  by  economy  ;  but  jugglers  only 
will  propose  to  create  it  by  legerdemain  tricks  with  paper."  —  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

"  We  are  in  danger  of  being  overwhelmed  with  irredeemable  paper  ;  mere  paper  represent 
ing,  not  gold,  nor  silver. —  no,  sir,  representing  nothing  but  broken  promises,  bad  faith,  bank 
rupt  corporations,  cheated  creditors,  and  a  ruined  people."  —  DANIEL  WEBSTER. 

MR.  SPEAKER,  —  The  hour  for  argument  has  passed. 
Four  months  of  debate  in  the  Senate,  and  nearly  three 
weeks  of  debate  in  the  House,  have  demonstrated  that  this 
Congress  has  determined  to  reverse  the  policy  of  its  predeces 
sors,  and  to  enter  upon  a  path  new  to  our  recent  history,  but 
well  known  as  an  old  path  of  disaster  and  disgrace.  I  have 
sought  the  floor  to  put  on  record  my  protest  against  the  step 
about  to  be  taken.  My  opinions  may  be  of  but  little  conse- 


CURRENCY  AND    THE   PUBLIC  FAITH.          177 

quence  to  others,  but  I  should  be  untrue  to  myself,  untrue  to 
my  deepest  convictions,  did  I  not  take  the  occasion  to  warn  the 
House  and  the  country  against  what  I  firmly  believe  to  be  the 
most  dangerous  and  fatal  legislation  that  I  have  known  in  my 
service  in  this  House. 

This  legislation  is  framed  to  answer  a  demand  for  what  several 
gentlemen  have  called  "  cheap  money."  I  hope  they  will  take 
no  offence  if  I  say  they  would  more  fitly  characterize  the  thing 
they  are  aiming  at  if  they  would  apply  to  it  the  old,  homely 
epithet  "  cheap  and  nasty."  I  hope  they  will  take  no  offence  if 
I  quote  a  paragraph  which  strikingly  exhibits  my  opinion  of  the 
result  of  this  measure.  In  his  essay  entitled,  "  Shooting  Niagara ; 
and  after?  "  Thomas  Carlyle  says  that  one  of  the  three  things 
which  are  visibly  before  us  Americans  is  free  racing,  erelong 
with  unlimited  speed,  in  the  career  of  cheap  and  nasty. 

"  '  Cheap  and  nasty ' ;  there  is  a  pregnancy  in  that  poor,  vulgar  prov 
erb,  which  I  wish  we  better  saw  and  valued  !  It  is  the  rude,  indignant 
protest  of  human  nature  against  a  mischief  which,  in  all  times  and  places, 
haunts  it  or  lies  near  it,  and  which  never  in  any  time  or  place  was  so  like 
utterly  overwhelming  it  as  here  and  now.  Understand,  if  you  will  con 
sider  it,  that  no  good  man  did,  or  ever  should,  encourage  i  cheapness '  at 
the  ruinous  expense  of  unfitness,  which  is  always  infidelity,  and  is  dishon 
orable  to  a  man."  1 

I  cannot  better  express  my  opinion  of  the  policy  that  seems 
to  have  been  fixed  upon  by  the  late  votes  of  the  two  houses, 
than  to  say  that  we  are  proposing  now  to  make  a  surrender  of 
reality  for  the  sake  of  an  apparent  good,  —  to  grasp  at  empty 
shadows  and  lose  the  substance.  In  discussing  the  questions 
which  now  confront  us,  it  is  not  always  easy  to  find  the  path 
of  duty.  The  conditions  of  the  problem  before  us  are  so  com 
plicated,  the  subject  is  so  many-sided,  that  men  may  well  differ 
in  methods.  But  we  ought  to  follow  our  measures  out  to  their 
inevitable  consequences,  and  confront  results  as  well  as  methods. 
It  was  easy  to  see  and  to  follow  the  path  of  duty,  when  citizens 
were  called  upon  to  decide  by  the  wager  of  battle  between  the 
destruction  of  the  nation  and  its  salvation.  But  next  to  the 
great  achievements  of  the  nation  in  putting  down  the  rebellion, 
destroying  its  cause,  and  reuniting  the  republic  on  the  principle 
of  liberty  and  equal  rights  to  all,  was  that  series  of  financial 

1  Miscellaneous  Essays,  Vol.  VII.  pp.  226,  227  (New  York,  1872). 

VOL.   II.  12 


178  CURRENCY  AND    THE  PUBLIC  FAITH. 

achievements  by  which  the  enormous  charges  of  the  war  were 
paid,  the  debt  funded,  the  public  credit  maintained,  and  the 
nation  launched  upon  its  career  of  prosperity.  The  financial 
perils  through  which  we  have  passed  were  almost  equal  to  the 
direst  perils  of  the  war.  Let  us  trace  the  steps  by  which  the 
nation  came  up  through  its  dangers  to  the  basis  of  safety  and 
peace. 

There  is  a  fellowship  among  the  virtues  by  which  one  great, 
generous  passion  stimulates  another.  When  the  patriotism  of 
the  people  had  risen  to  the  height  of  the  sublime  in  their  pur 
pose  to  put  down  the  Rebellion,  they  manifested  an  equally 
noble  purpose  of  meeting  all  their  obligations  incurred  in  the 
sacred  work.  Under  the  pressure  of  an  overmastering  neces 
sity,  and  upon  that  plea  alone,  the  nation  issued  its  treasury 
notes,  and  made  them  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts ;  but 
by  the  most  solemn  sanctions  they  gave  their  pledge  to  the 
world  that  the  volume  should  never  exceed  $400,000,000,  and 
that  at  the  earliest  possible  moment  they  would  redeem  their 
promises  and  restore  the  currency  to  the  standard  of  the  Con 
stitution.  Scarcely  had  the  echoes  of  their  cannon  died  away, 
when  they  set  about  the  work  of  redeeming  these  pledges.  In 
1866,  by  the  almost  unanimous  voice  of  both  houses  of  Con 
gress,  the  work  was  commenced  for  the  redemption  and  cancel 
lation  of  these  notes.  The  great  revenues  of  the  nation  were 
applied  to  this  purpose,  and  to  the  reduction  of  the  interest- 
bearing  debt. 

Hardly  had  the  great  cost  of  the  war  been  stated,  when  the 
nation  was  menaced  with  the  formidable  threat  of  repudiation. 
The  worst  elements  of  American  politics  were  appealed  to,  and 
the  passions  of  selfishness  and  cupidity  were  summoned  to  the 
aid  of  those  who  joined  in  the  assault  on  the  public  faith.  The 
autumn  of  1867  and  the  spring  of  1868  were  days  of  darkness 
and  gloom;  but  during  the  summer  and  fall  of  1868  the  Repub 
lican  party  appealed  with  confidence  to  the  American  con 
science  to  put  down  repudiation  in  every  form,  to  keep  the 
public  faith,  and  to  pay  the  sacred  obligations  of  the  war  to  the 
uttermost  farthing.  No  issue  was  ever  more  sharply  defined  than 
that  on  which  the  presidential  canvass  of  1868  was  made.  That 
issue  was  declared  in  the  national  platform  of  the  Republican 
party,  and  the  victorious  results  were  announced  in  the  inaugu 
ral  address  of  President  Grant,  wherein  he  stated  that  "  to  pro- 


CURRENCY  AND    THE  PUBLIC  FAITH.          179 

tect  the  national  honor  every  dollar  of  government  indebtedness 
should  be  paid  in  gold,  unless  otherwise  expressly  stipulated  in 
the  contract.  Let  it  be  understood  that  no  repudiator  of  one 
farthing  of  our  public  debt  will  be  trusted  in  public  places, 
and  it  will  go  far  toward  strengthening  a  credit  which  ought  to 
be  the  best  in  the  world."  This  victory  was  sealed  by  the  first 
act  of  Congress  to  which  President  Grant  gave  the  approval  of 
his  signature,  and  which  has  been  so  often  quoted  in  this  de 
bate.  It  was  a  victory  won  in  the  name  of  the  public  con 
science,  the  public  honor,  the  public  faith,  —  in  the  name  of 
truth.  From  that  moment  the  public  credit  was  enhanced, 
month  by  month,  and  the  national  faith  met  no  shock  until  the 
great  struggle  of  1870,  when  a  most  formidable  attempt  was 
made  to  break  down  the  barriers  of  public  confidence,  and 
launch  the  nation  again  upon  a  career  of  irredeemable  paper- 
money  expansion. 

I  believe  no  argument  has  been  advanced  during  this  debate 
that  was  not  presented  in  the  debate  of  1870.  I  have  now  in 
my  possession  nearly  fifty  bills  on  this  question,  introduced  into 
the  two  houses  of  Congress  in  that  year,  in  which  every  shade 
of  opinion  now  entertained  in  this  House  is  expressed  and  ad 
vocated,  —  bills  to  abolish  the  national  bank  system  and  issue 
greenbacks  in  place  of  national  bank  notes,  and  bills  to  author 
ize  the  reissue  of  the  $44,000,000  of  greenbacks  already  retired 
and  cancelled.  No  one  then  ventured  the  opinion  that  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  had  power  to  reissue  those  notes 
without  further  authority  from  Congress.  The  result  of  that 
debate  was  that  the  banking  facilities  of  the  South  and  West 
were  increased,  and  additional  notes  were  authorized  to  the 
extent  of  $54,000,000;  but  to  prevent  the  inflation  of  the  cur 
rency  and  the  derangement  of  values,  it  was  provided  that  the 
three  per  cent  certificates,  which  were  used  as  bank  reserves 
and  clearing-house  certificates,  should  be  retired  and  cancelled 
pari  passu  with  the  increase  of  national  bank-notes. 

Those  who  favored  a  great  enlargement  of  the  currency  at 
that  time  denounced  the  measure  as  wholly  insufficient  to  meet 
the  wants  of  the  country.  The  fifty-four  millions  was  said  to 
be  wholly  inadequate  to  the  demands  of  business.  We  were 
told  that  that  amount  would  be  taken  up  so  soon  as  speedily 
to  demonstrate  its  insufficiency.  But,  sir,  the  most  significant 
possible  answer  to  that  opinion  is  the  fact  that  the  $54,000,000 


i8o          CURRENCY  AND   THE  PUBLIC  FAITH. 

was  issued  so  slowly  that  even  to-day  four  and  one  third  mil 
lions  of  that  amount  has  not  been  taken  by  national  banks 
in  the  States  that  had  less  than  their  proportion  of  circulation. 
Let  gentlemen  explain  this  significant  fact  before  they  ask  us 
to  follow  their  lead. 

And  now,  Mr.  Speaker,  in  a  time  of  profound  peace,  nine 
years  after  the  last  hostile  gun  was  fired,  we  are  called  upon  to 
reverse  all  our  past  policy,  —  to  break  down  the  dikes  and  let 
the  sea  roll  in  upon  us.  We  are  asked  to  declare  that  it  was  a 
mistake  to  take  any  steps  toward  the  resumption  of  specie  pay 
ments  ;  that  it  was  a  mistake  to  redeem  our  solemn  promises  to 
pay;  that  it  was  a  mistake  even  to  keep  our  faces  turned  to 
ward  the  solid  ground  of  stable  values.  How  many  years  of 
disastrous  experience  are  needed  to  enforce  the  lesson  that  there 
are  immutable  laws  of  nature  which  no  Congress  can  safely 
ignore,  and  which  no  legislation  can  overturn?  Underlying  all 
exchange,  all  trade,  all  active  industry,  there  are  three  elements 
which  cannot  be  ignored ;  —  elements  that  enter  into  every  con 
tract  and  are  of  the  essence  of  every  exchange ;  elements  that 
are  recognized  in  the  national  Constitution.  They  are  the  meas 
ure  of  extension,  whether  of  length,  breadth,  depth,  or  capacity ; 
the  measure  of  weight,  which  is  intimately  related  to  that  of 
extension ;  and  the  measure  of  value,  which  is  closely  related  to 
both.  The  Constitution  empowers  Congress  to  fix  the  standards 
of  weights,  of  measures,  and  of  values.  But  Congress  cannot 
create  extension,  nor  weight,  nor  value.  It  can  measure  what 
exists ;  it  can  declare,  and  subdivide,  and  name  a  standard ;  but 
it  cannot  make  length  of  that  which  has  no  length ;  it  cannot 
make  weight  of  that  which  has  no  weight ;  it  cannot  make  value 
of  that  which  has  no  value. 

With  what  care  has  our  government  protected  its  standards ! 
The  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  *  sneeringly  asked,  Why  does 
not  some  one  argue  in  favor  of  redeeming  the  yardstick,  the 
quart-pot,  or  the  Fairbanks  scales?  In  that  paragraph  he  uses 
words  without  significance.  We  do  not  redeem  these  standards, 
but  we  do  in  regard  to  them  what  is  analogous  to  the  redemption 
of  our  standard  of  value.  Our  yardstick  is  a  metallic  bar  copied 
from  the  standard  yard  of  England,  which  is  nearly  three  hun 
dred  years  old.  It  is  deposited  in  the  office  of  the  Coast  Sur 
vey,  and  is  sacredly  guarded  from  change  or  injury.  The  best 

1  Mr.  Butler. 


CURRENCY  AND    THE  PUBLIC  FAITH.         181 

efforts  of  science  have  been  brought  to  bear  to  make  the  yard 
stick  as  little  liable  as  possible  to  mutilation  or  change.  Two 
methods  have  been  adopted  to  test  the  accuracy  of  the  stan 
dard  and  preserve  it  from  loss.  One  is  to  find  a  pendulum 
which,  swinging  in  vacuo,  will  make  one  vibration  a  second,  at  a 
given  altitude  from  the  level  of  the  sea ;  the  other,  the  method 
adopted  by  France  when,  in  the  last  century,  she  sent  her  sur 
veyors  to  measure  six  hundred  miles  of  a  meridian  line,  from 
Dunkirk  to  Barcelona.  Thus  she  made  her  meter  a  given  ali 
quot  part  of  the  earth's  circumference,  so  that  should  her  stan 
dard  be  lost  the  measure  of  the  globe  itself  would  furnish  the 
means  of  restoring  it.  Both  these  standards  are  deposited  in 
the  Coast  Survey,  and,  together  with  the  standard  measures  of 
capacity,  are  furnished  to  the  several  States  as  the  standards  to 
which  all  our  State  and  municipal  laws  refer.  Every  contract 
for  the  sale  and  delivery  of  anything  that  can  be  weighed  or 
measured  is  based  upon  these  standards,  and  the  citizen  who 
changes  the  weight  or  the  measurement  commits  a  misde 
meanor,  for  which  he  is  punished  by  the  law.  The  false  weight 
and  balance  are  still  an  abomination.  Sir,  we  do  not  redeem  our 
yardstick ;  but  we  preserve  it,  and  by  the  solemn  sanctions  of 
the  law  demand  that  it  shall  be  applied  to  all  transactions  where 
extension  is  an  element.  Let  us  with  equal  care  restore  and 
preserve  our  standard  of  value,  which  must  be  applied  to  every 
exchange  of  property  between  man  and  man.  An  uncertain 
and  fluctuating  standard  is  an  evil  whose  magnitude  is  too  vast 
for  measurement. 

Let  me  call  attention  to  a  few  features  of  the  bill  now  before 
the  House.  Its  first  section  abolishes  all  the  reserves  by  which 
our  statesmen  have  hitherto  protected  the  circulation  of  the 
banks  and  kept  them  in  readiness  to  redeem  their  notes.  This 
great  safeguard  is  thrown  away.  The  ballast  is  tossed  from  the 
boat  of  the  balloon ;  the  cables  are  cut  which  held  it  to  the 
earth.  The  section  will  also  operate  unequally  and  unjustly. 
For  example,  it  requires  five  and  a  half  millions  less  of  reserve 
to  be  held  by  the  banks  of  New  York,  and  five  and  a  half  mil 
lions  more  by  the  banks  of  Boston,  than  is  now  required  by 
law.  Inflation  in  New  York,  contraction  in  Boston.1  Section  5 

1  The  editor  is  indebted  to  Hon.  John  Jay  Knox,  Comptroller  of  the  Currency, 
for  the  following  note  :  — 

"  The  bill  then  pending  provided  for  the  repeal  of  all  acts  requiring  money  to 


1 82          CURRENCY  AND   THE  PUBLIC  FAITH. 

works  a  revolution  in  the  system  of  bank  balances.  It  requires 
five  per  cent  in  lawful  money  of  the  circulation  of  every  na 
tional  bank  to  be  kept  in  New  York  and  Washington.  This 
takes  twenty  millions  of  greenbacks  away  from  the  sixteen  re 
demption  cities  of  the  United  States,  and  places  them  in  Wash 
ington  and  New  York,  for  the  purpose  of  making  the  officers  of 
the  Treasury  assort  and  redeem  the  mutilated  currency  of  the 
banks  and  issue  new  notes  in  their  place.  By  the  third  section 
forty-four  millions  are  added  to  the  greenback  circulation.  By 
this  we  are  to  lose  all  we  have  gained  in  the  way  of  redeeming 
the  promise  of  the  nation  to  pay  its  long  overdue  paper.  This 
is  a  permanent  postponement  of  specie  payments ;  it  hopelessly 
cripples  the  machinery  by  which  that  result  is  to  be  reached. 
To  this  is  added  an  unlimited  increase  of  national  bank  notes. 

By  this  measure  we  invite  two  dangers.  With  one  hand  we 
throw  overboard  the  ballast ;  with  the  other  we  spread  the  sails, 
and  thus  commit  the  ship  of  our  public  credit 

"  To  the  god  of  storms, 
The  lightning  and  the  gale." 

I  believe,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  the  proposition  before  us  is 
fraught  with  measureless  mischief.  If  you  will  authorize  free 
banking  coupled  with  some  wise  restriction,  something  that  will 
lead  us  slowly  but  surely  toward  specie  payments,  —  if  we  can 
reach  the  two  great  results,  specie  payments  and  free  banking, 
—  we  shall  preserve  the  quality  of  our  currency  and  shall  leave 

be  kept  on  hand  as  a  reserve  for  circulation.  It  required,  however,  that  the  banks 
should  keep  on  hand  a  redemption  fund  in  the  treasury  amounting  to  five  per  cent 
of  the  circulation. 

"  The  act  then  in  force  authorized  the  national  banks  in  the  redemption  cities  to 
keep  one  half  of  their  reserve  in  New  York  City,  — the  country  banks  to  keep  a 
reserve  of  fifteen  per  cent,  three  fifths  of  which  might  be  kept  in  the  redemption 
cities.  The  banks  in  New  York  were  required  to  keep  all  their  reserve  on  hand. 

"  The  proposed  law  decreased  the  reserves  in  New  York  by  abolishing  the  re 
serve  upon  circulation.  It  also  decreased  the  reserve  in  Boston,  and  in  the  other 
banks,  in  the  same  way ;  but  at  the  same  time  it  largely  increased  the  total  reserve 
to  be  kept  on  hand,  by  repealing  the  sections  of  the  act  then  in  force,  which  author 
ized  such  banks  to  keep  large  amounts  in  the  hands  of  their  correspondents. 

"  The  figures  of  General  Garfield  were  given  in  round  numbers,  and  were  an  es 
timate,  but  the  effect  of  the  bill  would  have  been  as  he  stated,  —  a  diminution  of 
reserves  in  New  York,  and  an  increase  of  reserves  to  be  kept  on  hand  elsewhere. 
The  bill,  as  it  finally  passed,  did  not  change  the  proportion  of  reserves  on  deposits 
to  be  held  with  their  correspondents  by  banks  outside  of  the  city  of  New  York, 
and  allowed  the  five  per  cent  redemption  fund  to  be  counted  as  a  part  of  such  re 
serves." 


CURRENCY  AND   THE  PUBLIC  FAITH.          183 

its  quantity  to  be  regulated  by  the  demands  of  trade.  There 
never  did  exist  on  this  earth  a  body  of  men  wise  enough  to  de 
termine  by  any  arbitrary  rule  how  much  currency  is  needed  for 
the  business  of  a  great  country.  The  laws  of  trade,  the  laws 
of  credit,  the  laws  of  God,  impressed  upon  the  elements  of  this 
world,  are  superior  to  all  legislation ;  and  we  can  enjoy  the  ben 
efits  of  these  immutable  laws  only  by  obeying  them. 

I  desire,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  all  the  real  wants  of  the  Great 
West  and  of  the  whole  country  shall  be  fully  supplied ;  but  let 
them  be  supplied  by  that  which  is  reality,  and  not  by  broken 
and  dishonored  promises.  Let  us  not  offer  to  the  people  of  this 
country  the  apples  of  Sodom,  that  shall  turn  to  ashes  on  their 
lips.  I  believe,  sir,  if  this  legislation  prevails,  that  the  day  is 
not  far  distant  when  the  cry  will  come  up  from  those  who  labor 
in  humblest  fields  of  industry,  denouncing  those  who  have  let 
loose  upon^  them  the  evils  enveloped  in  this  bill.  It  has  been 
demonstrated  again  and  again  that  upon  the  artisans,  the  farm 
ers,  the  day-laborers,  falls  at  last  the  dead  weight  of  all  the 
depreciation  and  loss  that  irredeemable  paper  money  carries  in 
its  train.  Let  thfs  policy  be  carried  out,  and  the  day  will  surely 
and  speedily  come  when  the  nation  will  clearly  trace  the  cause 
of  its  disaster  to  those  who  deluded  themselves  and  the  peo 
ple  with  what  Jefferson  fitly  called  "  legerdemain  tricks  with 
paper." 

I  was  greatly  surprised  to  hear  gentlemen  quote  the  fathers 
of  the  republic  as  supporters  of  irredeemable  paper  money. 
The  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania x  has  referred  to  Franklin  to 
support  his  opinions.  I  appeal  from  the  Franklin  of  1729  and 
1764  to  the  Franklin  of  riper  experience.2  I  have  been,  if  not 
a  thorough,  yet  a  reverent  reader  of  those  great  men  whose 
names  illuminate  the  pages  of  our  history;  and  I  affirm  that 
they  are  almost  unanimous  in  their  condemnation  of  any  stan 
dard  of  value  except  that  of  the  Constitution,  or  any  kind  of 
paper  money  except  such  as  is  redeemable  in  gold  at  the  will 
of  the  holder.  From  the  days  of  Washington  to  the  present 
hour,  no  President,  no  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  scarcely 
a  statesman  whose  name  is  enrolled  among  the  illustrious  dead, 
has  failed  to  make  his  protest  against  the  weak  and  wicked 
policy  of  issuing  and  permanently  maintaining  an  irredeemable 

1  Mr.Kelley. 

2  See  the  paper  entitled  "The  Currency  Conflict,"/^/,  p.  255. 


1 84          CURRENCY  AND   THE  PUBLIC  FAITH. 

paper  currency.  I  should  be  false  to  history,  false  to  the  past 
of  our  nation,  if  I  did  not  refer  to  this  instructive  fact.  I  ask 
leave  to  put  on  record  a  few  paragraphs  on  this  subject  from 
some  of  the  great  men  who  have  adorned  the  records  of  our 
country.1  It  will  be  seen  that  from  the  beginning  until  now  our 
leading  statesmen  have  uttered  their  warning  voices.  At  no 
period  have  their  warnings  been  more  needed  than  at  the  pres 
ent  moment.  Gentlemen  may  despise  the  wisdom  of  the  past, 
but  at  last  the  truth  will  vindicate  and  avenge  itself. 

Gentlemen  hope  that  this  bill  will  give  relief  to  the  country ; 
but  that  hope  is  delusive.  Any  relief  it  may  bring  will  be  tem 
porary,  and  it  will  bring  in  its  train  greater  evils  than  those  we 
now  suffer.  By  the  currency  act  of  1870,  the  West  and  South 
are  now  entitled  to  a  distribution  of  $25,000,000  of  banking  cir 
culation,  to  be  taken  from  the  overplus  of  the  Eastern  States.  If 
that  is  not  enough,  let  the  amount  be  increased;  but  let  the 
increase  be  coupled  with  provisions  that  shall  prevent  the  fur 
ther  depreciation  of  the  mass.  Above  all  things,  let  us  take  no 
step  backward ;  but  persevere  in  the  purpose  to  restore  to  the 
people  their  standard  of  value,  and  make  their  money  better, 
rather  than  worse. 

1  The  pamphlet  edition  of  this  speech  issued  by  its  author  contained  quotations 
from  J.  S.  Mill,  (Political  Economy,  Book  III.  Chap.  XIII.  sec.  3) ;  Dr.  Franklin 
(Works,  Vol.  VIII.  p.  368,  and  Vol.  X.  p.  9);  Richard  Henry  Lee  and  George 
Washington  (Washington's  Works,  Vol.  IX.  pp.  120,  186,  187,  231-233);  John 
Adams  (Life  and  Works,  Vol.  VIII.  p.  410) ;  Pelatiah  Webster  and  W.  M.  Gouge 
(Gouge's  History  of  Paper  Money,  pp.  30,31);  The  Madison  Papers  (Elliott's 
Debates,  Vol.  V.  pp.  434,  435);  Alexander  Hamilton  (Works,  Vol.  III.  pp.  124, 
125) ;  Thomas  Jefferson  (Works,  Vol.  VI.  pp.  139,  142,  232,  241,  245-247)  ;  James 
Madison  (Writings,  Vol.  I.  pp.  243,  and  Vol.  III.  p.  166)  ;  Daniel  Webster  (Works, 
Vol.  III.  pp.  53,  542)  ;  John  C.  Calhoun  (Debates  in  Congress,  Vol.  XIV.  Part  I. 
P-  476);  James  Buchanan  (Debates  in  Congress,  Vol.  XIV.  Part  I.  p.  355) ;  S.  P. 
Chase  (Financial  Reports,  December  9,  1861,  pp.  40,  41,  and  December  4,  1862, 
p.  16). 

These  quotations  fill  several  pages,  and  need  not  be  reproduced  in  this  place. 


CENSUS. 

ARTICLE    CONTRIBUTED  TO  JOHNSON'S  NEW   UNIVERSAL 
CYCLOPEDIA. 


CEN'SUS  [a  Latin  word,  from  censeo,  censum,  to  "  weigh, 
estimate,  tax,  assess  "  ;  a  registering  and  rating  of  Roman 
citizens ;  the  censors'  lists ;  the  registered  property  of  Roman 
citizens;  Fr.  recensement,  a  "statement,  return,  verification"; 
cens,  "  census,"  or  amount  of  direct  tax  qualifying  one  to  be  an 
elector;  Eng.  cense  (obsolete),  a  "  public  rate,"  "  rank,"  "con 
dition  ";  also  cess  (obsolete),  to  "  rate,"  to  "  assess"],  an  offi 
cial  enumeration  of  the  inhabitants  of  a  state  or  municipality. 
The  various  forms  and  significations  of  the  word,  as  given  above, 
indicate  the  chief  objects  for  which  the  census  has  been  used 
in  the  different  periods  of  history,  though  in  many  cases  other 
objects  have  been  associated  with  these. 

I.  THE  CENSUS  OF  ANCIENT  NATIONS.  —  An  inquiry  into 
the  censuses  of  ancient  nations  is  valuable  only  in  so  far  as  it 
exhibits  the  objects  had  in  view  and  the  methods  employed.  It 
is  alleged  that  China  ordained  a  census  more  than  twenty  cen 
turies  before  Christ;  also,  that  a  census  was  taken  in  Japan  a 
century  before  the  Christian  era;  also,  that  statistical  informa 
tion  was  taken  by  officials  in  Peru  under  the  reign  of  the  Incas. 
But  these  and  similar  notices  of  ancient  censuses  are  too  vague 
and  uncertain  to  possess  much  value.  This  article  will  be  di 
rected  chiefly  to  those  nations  of  which  history  speaks  with 
definiteness  and  reasonable  certainty. 

I .  The  Jewish  Census.  —  It  was  ordered  in  the  Jewish  law 
that  the  first-born  of  man  and  beast,  as  well  as  the  first  fruits  of 
agricultural  produce,  should  be  set  apart  for  religious  purposes; 
the  first-born  of  man  to  be  redeemed,  the  first-born  of  the  beasts, 
excepting  the  ass,  and  the  first  fruits  of  the  earth,  to  be  offered 
unto  the  Lord  (Ex.  xiii.  11-13;  xxii.  29).  According  to  Arch- 


1 86  CENSUS. 

bishop  Ussher's  chronology,  this  enactment  must  be  referred  to 
the  year  1491  B.  C.  The  law  further  provided  that  when  the  sum 
of  the  children  of  Israel  was  taken  they  should  give  every  man 
a  ransom  for  his  soul,  amounting  to  a  half-shekel  of  silver  (Ex. 
xxx.  1 2-1 6).  So  far  as  appears,  this  is  the  original  institution  of 
the  Jewish  census.  It  is  clear  that  it  was  primarily  for  religious 
purposes.  The  Hebrew  word  answering  to  census  or  enumera 
tion  means  a  "  numbering  combined  with  lustration,"  from  a 
verb  signifying  to  "  survey,  in  order  to  purge."  The  four  most 
notable  enumerations  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament  were : 
1st.  In  the  third  or  fourth  month  after  the  Exodus  the  males  of 
the  Hebrews,  twenty  years  of  age  and  upwards,  were  enumerated 
by  Divine  command,  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  raising  money  for 
the  tabernacle  (Ex.  xxxviii.  26).  The  enumeration  amounted  to 
603,550.  The  number  of  men  at  the  time  of  leaving  Egypt  is 
stated  (Ex.  xii.  37),  but  it  is  hardly  probable  that  a  formal  enu 
meration  was  made  at  that  time.  Probably  the  result,  600,000, 
was  retrospectively  inferred  from  the  first  numbering  at  Sinai. 
2d.  A  second  enumeration  was  made  at  Sinai  in  the  second 
month  of  the  second  year  after  the  Exodus  (Num.  i.  2,  3).  Here 
a  new  idea  appears,  as  this  numbering  was  to  ascertain  (i.)  the 
number  of  fighting  men  between  the  ages  of  twenty  and  fifty; 
and  (2.)  the  amount  of  the  redemption  offering.  Exclusive  of  the 
Levites,  the  result  was  the  same  as  the  first.  3d.  The  next  enu 
meration  was  made  just  before  the  tribes  entered  Canaan,  thirty- 
eight  years  after  the  one  just  mentioned  (Num.  xxvi.  63-65). 
The  number  of  men  had  slightly  fallen  off.  4th.  The  mpst  not 
able  of  the  Jewish  censuses  was  that  taken  in  the  reign  of  King 
David.  Its  history  can  be  gathered  from  2  Sam.  xxiv.  1-9 ; 
I  Chron.  xxi.  1-7,  14;  xxvii.  23,  24.  This  enumeration  was  fol 
lowed  by  a  three  days'  pestilence,  which  destroyed  70,000  men. 
The  pestilence  is  credited  to  David's  presumption.  It  is  not 
altogether  clear  in  what  his  offence  consisted.  According  to 
Josephus  (Antiquities,  vii.  13,  §  i),  the  king's  transgression  was 
in  not  collecting  the  redemption  offering  required  by  the  law. 
This  account  is  more  generally  followed  by  Biblical  scholars, 
but  some  attribute  the  pestilence  to  David's  presumption  and 
pride,  of  which  the  enumeration  is  regarded  as  an  indication. 
It  appears  from  Ex.  xxx.  12,  either  that  the  customary  ransom 
was  to  avert  a  plague  among  the  people,  or  that  such  plague 
was  to  be  the  penalty  for  neglecting  to  require  the  offering. 


CENSUS.  187 

The  pestilence  made  a  lasting  impression  on  the  minds  of  men ; 
for  to  this  day,  in  both  Mohammedan  and  Christian  countries, 
especially  in  the  former,  there  are  superstitious  fears  attending 
enumerations  of  the  people.  David's  enumeration  of  the  people 
was  not  recorded.  All  the  objects  comprehended  in  the  Jewish 
census  are  stated  above.  It  does  not  appear  that  the  law  made 
any  provision  as  to  the  time  or  manner  of  making  the  enumer 
ations.  The  censuses  referred  to  in  the  New  Testament  were 
taken  under  Roman  authority,  and  were  in  no  proper  sense 
Jewish. 

2.  The  Greek  Census. — History  gives  us  no  definite  knowledge 
of  a  census  in  any  portion  of  Greece  except  at  Athens,  where 
the  census  was  established  by  Solon,  who  held  the  office  of 
Archon  from  558  to  549  B.  c.  He  made  a  radical  change  in 
the  constitution  of  Attica.  Before  his  time  the  honors  and 
duties  of  the  citizen  were  based  on  birth ;  he  introduced  what 
was  called  the  tiinocracy,  or  government  based  on  wealth.  He 
distributed  all  free  citizens,  without  regard  to  birth  or  rank,  into 
four  classes,  according  to  the  amount  of  property  they  owned. 
The  classes  were,  —  1st.  Those  whose  annual  income  was  equal 
to  or  exceeded  500  medimni  of  corn  (about  700  English  bush 
els).  2d.  Those  whose  income  was  less  than  500  and  more  than 
300  medimni.  3d.  Those  whose  income  was  less  than  300  and 
more  than  200  medimni.  4th.  All  whose  property  yielded  an 
income  less  than  200  medimni.  The  medimnus  of  corn  was 
valued,  in  the  time  of  Solon,  at  about  one  drachma,  or  9%^/. 

The  first  class  (IlevTaKoo-io/AeSifjLvoi)  alone  were  eligible  to 
the  principal  public  offices.  The  second  class  ('iTTTreZ?)  were 
knights,  or  those  having  sufficient  income  to  keep  horses  and 
perform  cavalry  service.  The  third  class  (Zeuymu,  so  named 
from  their  being  able  to  keep  a  yoke  of  oxen)  formed  the  heavy- 
armed  infantry.  The  fourth  class  (©f/re?),  which  comprised  the 
great  body  of  the  people,  were  ineligible  to  any  office,  paid  but 
little  if  any  tax,  and  in  case  of  war  served  only  as  light-armed 
infantry,  with  weapons  furnished  by  the  state. 

The  census  was  instituted  for  the  double  purpose  of  making 
this  classification  of  citizens,  and  of  laying  the  foundation  of  the 
Athenian  system  of  taxation.  The  idea  of  assessment  was  as 
much  a  part  of  the  census  as  that  of  enumeration.  The  Greek 
word  for  assessment  (reXet^)  has  also  the  general  meaning  of 
rank  or  class;  and  the  phrase  reKelv  TO  reXo?,  which  signifies 


1 88  CENSUS. 

"  to  comply  with  the  requisition  assessed,"  signifies  also  to  belong 
to  a  class.  The  census  was  taken,  at  first,  by  the  Naucrari,  and 
afterwards  by  the  Demarchi.  A  record  was  kept,  showing  the 
class  to  which  each  citizen  belonged,  and  the  list  of  his  taxable 
property.  The  census  was  taken  sometimes  once  a  year,  and 
sometimes  once  in  four  years,  according  as  property  fluctuated 
in  value.  The  classification  of  Solon  lasted,  with  some  modifi 
cation,  to  the  close  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  (404  B.  c.),  and 
was  in  part  preserved  after  the  renovation  of  the  democracy  in 
the  following  year.  The  classification  of  citizens  and  the  mode 
of  assessment  were  changed  during  the  archonship  of  Nausini- 
cus  (in  378  B.  C.),  in  order  to  levy  increased  taxes  for  carrying 
on  the  war  against  Sparta. 

(For  the  latest  and  fullest  discussion  of  the  Greek  census  see 
Boeckh's  "  Political  Economy  of  the  Athenians,"  (English  trans., 
Boston,  1857,)  Book  IV.  chap.  5  ;  Grote's  "  History  of  Greece," 
Vol.  III.  chap.  11,  and  Vol.  X.  chap.  87;  Plutarch's  "Solon"; 
and  Smith's  "  Dictionary  of  Greek  and  Roman  Antiquities," 
words  Censor  and  Census.} 

3.  The  Roman  Census. — The  institution  of  the  census  at 
Rome  was  intimately  connected  with  the  great  reform  in  the 
Roman  constitution  consummated  by  Servius  Tullius.  Before 
his  time  all  the  political  and  military  authority  was  wielded  by 
a  few  powerful  Roman  families,  and  clans  or  groups  of  fami 
lies,  called  gentes.  The  word  populus  applied  to  these  families 
alone.  Around  the  members  of  this  ruling  class  were  gathered, 
under  the  name  of  clients,  a  large  number  of  foreigners  (metceci) 
residing  at  Rome,  subjugated  people,  and  freedmen,  who  pos 
sessed  no  political  rights,  paid  no  regular  taxes,  and  were 
neither  compelled  nor  permitted  to  serve  in  the  army.  Most 
of  them  were  farmers,  and  many  were  wealthy.  As  the  city 
grew,  this  plebeian  class  rapidly  increased.  In  order  to  equal 
ize  the  burdens  of  the  state,  but  particularly  to  strengthen  the 
army  and  make  it  more  national,  Servius  Tullius  so  changed 
the  constitution  as  to  place  the  burdens  of  taxation  and  the 
duties  and  honors  of  military  service,  not  upon  the  patricians 
as  such,  but  upon  freeholders  between  the  ages  of  seventeen 
and  sixty,  without  regard  to  family  or  rank.  All  these  were 
distributed  into  five  classes,  according  to  the  amount  of  land 
owned  by  each.  It  has  been  held  by  most  writers  that  the 
classification  was  based  upon  the  amount  of  wealth,  in  any  form, 


CENSUS.  189 

possessed  by  the  citizen ;  but  Mommsen  and  other  late  authori 
ties  insist  that  the  basis  was  land. 

The  first  class  comprised  those  who  owned  an  entire  hide  of 
land,  —  a  full  Roman  farm,  —  not  less  than  twenty  jugera  (about 
fourteen  acres).  The  second,  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  classes 
consisted  of  those  who  owned  respectively  three  fourths,  one 
half,  one  fourth,  and  one  eighth  of  a  hide  of  land.  The  non- 
freeholders  (proletarii},  counted  by  some  authorities  as  the 
sixth  class,  were  called  capite  censi  (i.  e.  "counted  by  the 
head").  They  could  not  vote,  paid  no  taxes,  and  were  not 
liable  to  perform  military  service.  The  rights  and  duties  of  all 
Romans  were  determined  by  the  class  to  which  they  were  thus 
assigned. 

In  order  to  effect  these  changes  in  the  government,  Servius 
Tullius  instituted  the  census  (5556.0.).  Every  citizen  was 
compelled  to  declare  his  name,  age,  and  tribe,  the  name  of  his 
father,  the  number  of  his  children,  the  value  of  his  estate,  and 
the  number  of  his  slaves.  The  record  thus  made  was  both  a 
land  register  and  a  roster  or  rank  roll  of  the  Roman  people. 
When  the  enumeration  and  registration  were  completed,  the 
people  were  assembled  in  the  Campus  Martius,  where  the  re 
ligious  solemnities  of  the  lustration  were  performed.  The  sac 
rifices  attending  it  were  called  suovetaurilia,  because  a  pig,  a 
sheep,  and  an  ox,  after  being  led  three  times  around  the  cam 
pus,  were  sacrificed  for  the  purification  of  the  people.  This 
was  called  the  closing  of  the  lustrum.  As  the  census  was  taken 
quinquennially,  the  word  lustrum  came  to  signify  a  period  of 
five  years. 

At  first,  the  census  was  taken  by  the  kings  in  person.  After 
the  expulsion  of  the  kings  it  was  taken  by  the  consuls ;  but  the 
duties  accompanying  the  census  became  so  important  that  in 
443  B.  c.  two  magistrates,  called  censors,  were  chosen  from  the 
patricians,  to  whom  this  duty  was  intrusted.  The  office  of  the 
censors  ranked  next  to  that  of  dictator.  Their  powers  and  du 
ties  were  threefold :  —  1st.  They  took  the  census  and  made  and 
kept  the  official  record.  In  performing  this  duty  they  were  the 
sole  judges  of  the  qualifications  required  by  law  for  the  rank  or 
class  to  which  a  citizen  should  be  assigned.  2d.  They  were 
conservators  of  public  and  private  morals.  This  branch  of 
their  power  was  called  regimen  morum.  If  in  their  judgment  a 
citizen  was  guilty  of  immoral  or  unworthy  conduct,  they  placed 


1 90  CENSUS. 

him  in  a  lower  class.  They  could  even  degrade  a  senator  by 
omitting  his  name  from  the  senatorial  list.  Ulpian  says  in  his 
"Digest"  (tit.  1-6),  "Roman  citizens  are  free  who  have  been 
made  free  by  the  act  of  manumission,  by  the  census,  or  by  a 
lawful  will."  (See  also  Cicero,  Top.  ii.  10.)  Any  one  known 
to  absent  himself  from  the  registration  was  called  incensus,  and 
was  subject  to  the  severest  punishment.  In  the  time  of  Servius 
Tullius  this  punishment  might  be  imprisonment  or  death.  In 
the  days  of  the  republic  the  incensus  might  be  sold  as  a  slave : 
"  Maxima  capitis  diminutio  est,  per  quam  et  civitas  et  libertas 
amittitur,  veluti  cum  incensus  aliquis  venerit."  (Ulpian,  Di 
gest,  tit.  xi.  11.)  3d.  They  were  charged  with  the  adminis 
tration  of  the  finances  of  the  state.  The  tribute  assessed  upon 
a  Roman  citizen  depended  upon  the  amount  of  his  property, 
as  registered  in  the  census ;  and  the  regulation  of  taxes  was 
placed  in  their  hands,  though  they  did  not  receive  nor  disburse 
the  revenues.  The  censorship  continued  421  years,  when  its 
powers  were  absorbed  by  the  emperors.  Augustus  extended 
the  census  to  the  provinces,  and  ordered  a  general  enumeration 
of  persons  and  property  throughout  the  empire.  Domitian 
assumed  the  title  of  "  perpetual  censor."  The  enumeration  con 
tinued  to  be  made  for  several  centuries,  but  the  ceremony  of 
lustration  was  not  observed  after  the  reign  of  Vespasian ;  and, 
later,  the  censuses  were  taken  but  once  in  fifteen  years.  With 
the  dissolution  of  the  Roman  empire,  the  census  seems  to  have 
disappeared  from  history;  and,  in  the  general  decline  of  intel 
lectual  life  that  followed,  even  the  original  meaning  of  the  word 
was  practically  lost  from  the  customs  of  nations. 

II.  THE  CENSUS  DURING  THE  MIDDLE  AGES.  — In  medi 
aeval  times  the  word  "census"  was  still  employed,  but  it  was 
applied  almost  exclusively  to  the  records  of  landed  estates  and 
the  assessment  of  taxes.  Until  the  thirteenth  century  there  is 
no  record  of  a  distinct  enumeration  of  the  population  in  the 
annals  of  any  mediaeval  people.  In  that  dreary  waste  of  his 
tory,  a  few  attempts  were  made  to  learn  something  concerning 
the  people  and  their  condition.  In  the  year  780,  Charlemagne 
appointed  officers  called  mis  si  dominici,  or  royal  commission 
ers,  who  travelled  from  province  to  province  to  examine  the 
condition  of  his  empire.  Their  reports  contained  some  valua 
ble  statistics  concerning  the  people,  the  soil,  and  the  products 
of  his  vast  dominions.  (See  Martin's  "  Histoire  de  France," 


CENSUS.  191 

Tom.  II.  pp.  277-284.)  These  reports  were  not  kept  up  after 
the  death  of  Charlemagne.  A  more  elaborate  and  successful 
effort  in  the  same  direction  was  made  in  England  (1080-86)  by 
William  the  Conqueror,  in  the  famous  "  Domesday  Book."  An 
inquisition  was  made  throughout  the  kingdom  concerning  the 
quantity  of  land  contained  in  each  county,  the  name  of  each 
Saxon  and  Norman  proprietor  of  land,  and  the  slaves  and  cattle 
belonging  to  each.  All  these  were  registered  in  a  book,  each 
article  beginning  with  the  king's  property,  and  proceeding  down 
ward  according  to  the  rank  of  the  proprietors.  By  this  register 
the  king  could  know  the  wealth,  rank,  and  position  of  all  his 
subjects.  It  served  as  the  basis  of  taxation,  and  was  used  in  the 
courts  as  the  evidence  of  property.  Of  this  book  Burke  says,  "  It 
was  a  work  in  all  respects  useful,  and  worthy  of  a  better  age." 
Several  early  attempts  at  a  census  were  made  in  Spain,  —  one 
by  Peter  the  Ceremonious,  king  of  Aragon,  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  the  results  of  which  were  not  published  until  the  pres 
ent  century;  and  another  in  the  fifteenth  century,  by  order  of 
the  Crown  of  Castile.  In  different  parts  of  Europe  a  few  statis 
tical  works  appeared ;  but  their  scope  was  narrow,  and  their 
materials  were  scanty  and  inaccurate.  It  would  appear  that  a 
comprehensive  census  is  found  only  in  enlightened  despotisms 
and  in  free  communities.  Neither  of  these  were  frequent  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  this  may  account  for  the  absence  of  enumer 
ations  of  the  people  during  that  period. 

III.  THE  CENSUS  IN  MODERN  TIMES.  —  The  modern  cen 
sus  is  of  slow  growth,  and  seems  to  have  developed  only  as 
nations  came  to  appreciate  the  fact  that  the  strength  and  glory 
of  a  state  depend  upon  the  condition  of  its  people  and  their 
industries.  While  rulers  were  unwilling  to  allow  their  people 
any  share  in  public  affairs,  there  was  little  attention  paid  to  the 
population  and  its  condition.  Till  within  the  last  two  centuries 
scarcely  an  effort  was  made  in  any  modern  country  to  obtain 
any  comprehensive  knowledge  of  the  people. 

I .  European  Nations.  —  Sweden  has  the  honor  of  being  the 
first  modern  government  to  establish  a  systematic  plan,  and  to 
record  important  facts  concerning  its  population.  The  fre 
quent  recurrence  of  famine  and  pestilence  in  that  country  near 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  led  the  clergy  to  keep  a 
register  of  the  marriages,  baptisms,  and  burials  within  their 
several  parishes.  The  keeping  of  this  register  was  made  obli- 


ic]2  CENSUS. 

gatory  by  an  ecclesiastical  law  of  1686,  which  is  still  in  force. 
That  law  required  a  register  of  marriages,  births,  and  deaths, 
with  many  accompanying  particulars ;  a  record  of  all  persons 
removing  to  or  from  each  parish ;  a  list  of  the  inhabitants  by 
houses  and  households ;  and  a  record  of  all  extraordinary  acci 
dents  occurring  during  the  year.  These  registers  were  intended 
to  serve  the  requirements  of  religion,  and  also  to  afford  the 
means  of  correcting  the  register  of  landed  property  and  house 
holds  kept  by  the  tax-collectors.  As  these  registers  were  made 
on  a  uniform  plan,  and  by  a  body  of  intelligent  and  cultivated 
men,  who  were  well  acquainted  with  the  people  of  their  par 
ishes,  the  records  were  exceedingly  accurate  and  valuable. 
For  a  long  time  the  results  were  not  collected ;  but  in  conse 
quence  of  a  memorial  presented,  to  the  Diet  in  1746  by  the 
Academy  of  Sciences  of  Stockholm,  schedules  of  questions 
concerning  the  movement  and  condition  of  the  population  were 
distributed  among  the  parishes,  with  orders  to  the  pastors  to 
make  returns  from  their  registers  for  the  previous  twenty-five 
years.  In  the  year  1749  a  return  was  made,  which  contained  a 
large  number  of  valuable  details  concerning  the  condition  of 
the  population,  but  it  was  many  years  before  these  facts  were 
published.  The  number  of  inhabitants  was  long  regarded  as 
one  of  the  most  important  state  secrets ;  and  it  was  forbidden 
under  heavy  penalties  to  reveal  to  the  public  anything  respect 
ing  it.  It  was  only  in  1762  that  permission  was  given  to  pub 
lish  some  extracts  from  the  official  reports  concerning  the 
progress  of  the  population.  It  was  from  facts  thus  obtained 
that  Doctor  Price  prepared  his  first  essay,  in  the  form  of  a 
letter  to  Doctor  Franklin,  which  laid  the  basis  for  the  famous 
life-tables  founded  on  the  statistics  of  Sweden.  From  1749 
to  1751  the  reports  of  population  were  made  annually;  from 
1754  to  1772,  triennially;  from  1775  to  the  present  time,  the 
census  has  been  taken  once  in  five  years.  In  towns,  the  head 
of  the  household,  in  accordance  with  instructions,  fills  up  the 
schedules,  which  are  collected  by  the  agents  of  the  police.  In 
the  country  districts,  the  census  is  still  taken  by  the  pastors  as 
a  part  of  their  parochial  duties. 

England  was  very  slow  in  achieving  a  census.  In  1592,  when 
the  plague  was  in  London,  records  were  kept  of  the  number  of 
deaths  in  the  city ;  but  the  practice  soon  fell  into  disuse,  and 
was  not  revived  until  1603,  the  first  year  of  the  reign  of  James  I., 


CENSUS.  193 

when  a  weekly  account  of  burials  and  christenings  in  Lon 
don  was  ordered  to  be  kept.  These  records  were  regularly 
kept  thereafter,  but  little  attention  was  paid  to  them  until  the 
year  1661,  when  Sir  William  Petty,  writing  under  the  name  of 
Captain  John  Graunt,  published  a  tract  entitled  "  Natural  and 
Political  Observations,  mentioned  in  a  following  Index,  and 
made  upon  the  Bills  of  Mortality  of  London,  with  reference  to 
the  Government,  Religion,  Trade,  Growth,  Air,  Diseases,  and 
several  Changes  of  said  City."  This  work  attracted  much  at 
tention,  and  the  author  followed  it  up  by  several  similar  works : 
one  on  the  mortality  bills  in  Dublin;  another,  in  1686,  entitled 
"  An  Essay  concerning  the  Multiplication  of  Mankind  and  the 
Growth  of  the  City  of  London " ;  also,  "  Essays  on  Political 
Arithmetic." 

It  is  curious  to  observe  what  vague  and  erroneous  opinions 
prevailed,  even  among  the  most  intelligent  thinkers  of  that  time, 
concerning  the  number  of  people  in  any  state  or  city.  A  strik 
ing  illustration  of  this  may  be  seen  in  the  fact,  that,  when  Sir 
William  began  his  investigation  of  the  population  of  London, 
he  mentions  it  as  a  matter  of  general  belief  that  the  city  then 
contained  several  millions  of  people.  The  imperfections  of  the 
statistical  methods  employed  in  his  day  may  be  seen  in  the 
following  passage  from  Sir  William's  "  Third  Essay  on  Political 
Arithmetic,"  1686,  pp.  21,  22:  — 

"  Proofs  that  the  number  of  people  in  the  134  Parishes  of  the  London 
Bills  of  Mortality,  without  reference  to  other  cities,  is  about  696  thou 
sand,  viz. :  — 

"  I  know  but  three  ways  of  finding  the  same. 

"  i.   By  the  houses,  and  families,  and  heads  living  in  each. 

"2.  By  the  number  of  burials  in  healthful  times,  and  by  the  propor 
tion  of  those  that  live  to  those  that  die. 

"3.  By  the  number  of  those  who  die  of  the  plague  in  pestilential 
years,  in  proportion  to  those  that  'scape." 

In  applying  his  first  method  he  has  no  count  of  the  houses, 
but,  as  he  says,  "pitches  upon  a  number"  as  a  rough  estimate, 
then  guesses  at  the  average  number  of  families  to  a  house  and 
persons  in  a  family,  and  finally  applies  his  arithmetic.  His 
second  and  third  methods  were  even  more  vague. 

During  the  eighteenth  century  several  efforts  were  made  to 
guess  at  the  population  of  England,  but  nothing  of  value  was 
accomplished  till  near  the  close  of  that  century.  Considering 

VOL.  ir.  13 


194  CENSUS. 

the  fact  that  economic  science  had  already  attained  a  high  de 
gree  of  development  in  England,  that  many  writers  had  suc 
cessfully  investigated  and  ably  discussed  statistical  subjects, 
and  that  censuses  had  been  ordered  in  the  American  colonies 
by  the  home  government  since  the  seventeenth  century,  it  is 
surprising  that  no  attempt  was  made  to  ascertain  the  population 
of  any  one  of  the  three  united  kingdoms  by  actual  inquiry  until 
1790,  when  Sir  John  Sinclair,  a  high  authority  in  matters  of 
public  finance  in  his  time,  and  a  man  of  rare  intelligence,  enter 
prise,  and  perseverance,  undertook  the  compilation  of  a  com 
plete  population,  agricultural,  commercial,  and  industrial  census 
of  Scotland.  For  this  purpose  he  addressed  one  hundred  and 
sixty  questions,  on  as  many  different  subjects,  to  all  the  clergy 
men  of  the  Established  Church.  He  had  much  difficulty  in 
obtaining  answers  from  them,  but  by  dint  of  persistently  re 
peated  appeals  he  succeeded,  after  several  years,  in  securing 
returns  from  nearly  all  the  parishes.  The  returns  were  pub 
lished  by  him  in  a  series  of  twenty-one  successive  volumes. 
The  energy  of  this  remarkable  man  may  be  judged  from  the 
fact  that  he  secured  no  less  than  nine  hundred  contributors  to 
his  census,  and  that  the  whole  compilation  and  publication  were 
completed  in  just  seven  years.  He  subsequently  prepared  a 
masterly  compendium  of  the  series,  entitled  an  "  Analysis  of 
the  Statistics  of  Scotland."  His  statistics  were  not  absolutely 
accurate,  but  they  formed,  although  the  work  of  a  single  indi 
vidual,  a  more  complete  census  than  any  yet  undertaken  by 
any  government.  Sir  John  Sinclair  may  be  said  to  be  the 
founder  of  British  public  statistics;  for  it  was  mainly  at  his 
suggestion  that  Parliament,  on  December  31,  1800,  passed  an 
act  providing  for  a  general  enumeration  of  the  population  of 
England,  Wales,  and  Scotland  in  the  following  spring,  and 
every  tenth  year  thereafter.  The  bill  was  offered  in  the  Com 
mons  by  Charles  Abbott  (afterwards  Lord  Tenterden),  and  the 
motion  for  leave  to  introduce  it  was  seconded  by  Mr.  Wilber- 
force.  The  first  census  was  taken  on  the  loth  of  March,  1801, 
in  England  and  Wales;  for  Scotland  a  later  day  was  assigned, 
owing  to  the  inclemency  of  the  season.  The  law  contained 
but  one  schedule,  and  the  following  inquiries  were  made.  The 
number  of  houses,  inhabited  and  uninhabited  ;  the  number 
of  families;  the  number  of  inhabitants,  male  and  female;  a 
classification  of  the  population  according  to  occupation,  in 


CENSUS.  195 

three  divisions:  1st,  persons  chiefly  employed  in  agriculture; 
2d,  persons  chiefly  employed  in  trade  and  manufactures  or 
handicrafts ;  3d,  all  other  persons  not  comprised  in  these  two 
classes ;  the  number  of  baptisms  and  burials  each  tenth  year, 
from  1700  to  1800;  and  the  number  of  marriages  from  1754  to 
1 80 1.  In  the  two  subsequent  enumerations,  in  1811  and  1821, 
the  same  schedule  was  followed,  except  that  the  occupations 
of  the  heads  of  families  only  were  entered.  In  that  of  1821,  a 
classification  of  ages  was  also  adopted.  In  1831,  a  uniform  sys 
tem  of  registration  of  births,  marriages,  and  deaths  was  estab 
lished  by  act  of  Parliament  for  England  and  Wales,  under  the 
supervision  of  the  registrar-general's  office.  Under  the  act  the 
territory  to  which  it  was  applied  was  divided  into  over  two 
thousand  registration  districts.  The  same  act  provided  that 
subsequent  enumerations  in  England  and  Wales  should  be  taken 
by  the  local  registrars,  under  the  direction  of  the  registrar-gen 
eral.  The  creation  of  a  regular  statistical  service  greatly  facili 
tated  the  census  of  1841  in  England  and  Wales.  In  Scotland, 
the  less  efficient  method  of  employing  the  parish  schoolmasters 
as  local  census-takers  was  continued. 

In  Ireland,  the  first  attempt  at  a  general  census  was  made  in 
1811,  with  very  unsatisfactory  results.  It  was  repeated  in  1821, 
but  produced  nothing  more  than  an  enumeration  of  doubtful  ac 
curacy.  The  next  census,  taken  in  1831,  was  subjected  to  a  cor 
rection  in  1834.  In  1841,  the  constabulary  force  was  employed 
as  census-takers,  with  better  results.  An  attempt  was  made,  in 
connection  with  the  census  of  the  year  last  named,  to  obtain 
statistics  of  the  rural  economy  of  the  Irish  kingdom,  which 
proved  very  successful. 

Great  efforts  were  made  to  render  the  sixth  census  of  Eng 
land,  Wales,  and  Scotland,  in  1851,  superior  in  results  to  the 
preceding  enumerations.  The  special  law  enacted  for  the  pur 
pose  provided  that  the  census  should  be  taken  on  one  and  the 
same  day  —  the  3ist  of  March  —  in  the  three  parts  of  the  king 
dom  named.  For  that  purpose  30,610  competent  enumerators 
were  appointed,  with  the  authority  of  the  registrar-general,  by  the 
2,190  district  registrars  then  in  function  in  England  and  Wales. 
Only  as  much  territory  was  assigned  to  each  enumerator  in  the 
registration  districts  as  could  be  conveniently  canvassed  by  one 
person.  There  being  no  uniform  system  of  registration  in  Scot 
land,  the  thirty-two  sheriffs  of  that  kingdom  were  authorized  to 


196  CENSUS. 

appoint  I,OIO  temporary  registrars, — generally  parochial  school 
masters, —  and  8,130  enumerators;  the  government  appointed 
257  enumerators  for  the  smaller  islands.  Some  days  before 
the  day  fixed,  the  enumerators  delivered  to  every  occupier  of  a 
house  or  tenement  a  "  householder's  schedule,"  containing  in 
quiries  as  to  the  name,  the  head  of  family,  condition,  sex,  age, 
occupation,  and  birthplace  of  every  person  in  Great  Britain, 
and  also  as  to  the  number  of  blind,  deaf,  and  dumb.  For 
the  use  of  the  lower  classes  of  Wales  schedules  were  printed  in 
Welsh.  The  schedule  was  to  be  filled  up  in  the  night  of  March 
30-31.  No  one  present  in  any  household  on  that  night  was  to 
be  omitted,  except  workingmen  and  others  performing  night 
labor  away  from  their  habitations.  Travellers  were  enumerated 
at  the  hotels  and  houses  at  which  they  arrived  on  the  following 
morning.  Simultaneously  with  the  household  schedules  the 
enumerators  distributed  in  the  proper  quarters  forms  for  col 
lecting  information  respecting  places  of  worship,  scholastic  es 
tablishments,  and  miscellaneous  institutions.  The  schedules  were 
taken  up  by  the  enumerators  at  an  early  hour  on  the  3 1st  of 
March.  The  collectors  filled  up  those  parts  which  persons  had 
either  neglected  or  were  unable  to  fill.  They  were  also  required 
to  note  all  the  unoccupied  houses  and  buildings  in  course  of 
construction.  The  floating  population  —  that  is,  such  persons 
as  spent  the  night  named  in  barges  or  boats  on  canals  or  small 
streams,  in  barns,  sheds,  tents,  and  the  like — the  enumerators 
were  required  to  estimate  according  to  the  best  information  they 
could  obtain.  Special  notice  was  to  be  taken  of  all  extraordi 
nary  assemblages  of  people  anywhere  at  the  time  of  the  census. 
The  enumerators  were  allowed  one  week  for  the  transcription  of 
their  schedules  and  the  completion  of  summaries  and  estimates 
called  for  in  their  very  full  instructions.  The  revision  of  the 
returns  by  the  district  registrars,  in  which  the  latter  were  to  pay 
particular  attention  to  nine  specially  defined  points,  had  to  be 
completed  in  a  fortnight.  The  revised  returns  were  subjected 
to  another  revision  by  the  supervising  registrars  before  they 
were  finally  transmitted  to  the  census  office.  The  custom-house 
officers  took  the  census  of  sea-going  vessels  in  port.  Persons 
belonging  to  the  navy  and  commercial  marine  were  also  sepa 
rately  enumerated  by  the  proper  authorities.  The  government 
furnished  the  statistics  of  the  army,  half-pay  officers,  and  pen 
sioners,  the  civil  service,  the  civilians  and  Europeans  in  the  East 


CENSUS.  197 

India  Company's  service,  and  of  all  British  subjects  living  in 
foreign  parts,  as  far  as  they  could  be  ascertained  through  con 
sular  and  diplomatic  organs. 

The  British  census  of  1851  was  the  most  successful  statistical 
operation,  both  as  regards  quickness  and  accuracy  of  execution, 
performed  up  to  that  time  in  any  country  where  public  statis 
tics  were  cultivated.  The  plan  of  the  census  of  1861  did  not 
vary  in  any  essential  respect  from  that  of  the  preceding  one. 
Its  execution  was  equally  rapid  and  fruitful  of  satisfactory 
results,  in  spite  of  the  greater  difficulty  of  the  task  from  the 
growth  of  population,  etc. 

In  Ireland  the  censuses  of  1851  and  1861  were  again  taken 
by  the  constabulary  force.  The  mode  of  enumeration  was 
essentially  the  same  as  in  England,  except  that  the  schedules 
represented  a  wider  field  of  inquiry.  The  additional  interrog 
atories  related  to  insanity,  idiocy,  degree  of  education,  attend 
ance  at  school,  buildings  other  than  habitations,  and  language. 
Since  18043  general  registration  of  births  and  deaths  in  Ireland 
is  made  by  civil  officers ;  up  to  that  time  registers  were  kept 
only  for  the  Protestant  population.  While  both  in  Ireland  and 
in  Scotland  an  agricultural  census,  which  serves  to  determine 
the  area  devoted  to  the  culture  of  different  products  of  the 
soil,  and  the  number  of  live  stock,  had  been  required  for  many 
years,  the  first  cattle  census  was  taken  in  England  and  Wales 
only  in  May,  1866;  it  was  followed  soon  after  by  a  comprehen 
sive  agricultural  census. 

In  1871  the  eighth  census  of  the  United  Kingdom  was  taken. 
Over  32,000  enumerators  were  employed  in  taking  it.  Several 
minor  inquiries  were  added  to  the  schedules,  and  some  impor 
tant  inquiries  concerning  education  were  made  to  supply  the 
demand  for  information  by  the  School  Board  established  under 
the  Elementary  Education  Act  of  1870.  In  London  alone  the 
School  Board  was  supplied  with  certain  particulars  concerning 
the  700,000  children  between  the  age  of  three  and  thirteen  liv 
ing  within  the  limits  of  the  London  School  Board  district. 

The  digestion  of  the  English  and  Irish  census  reports  by  the 
central  statistical  authorities  is  conducted  in  a  thoroughly  sci 
entific  manner.  The  general  reports  and  the  special  compila 
tions  therefrom  on  a  variety  of  subjects  are  unsurpassed  by  the 
corresponding  records  of  any  other  country.  Their  great  value 
to  statisticians  and  economists  is  universally  acknowledged. 


198  CENSUS. 

The  movement  of  the  population  of  the  United  Kingdom  is 
annually  determined  by  the  registrar-general's  office  through 
the  agency  of  the  district  registrars. 

France  established  a  census  only  after  many  ineffectual  at 
tempts,  and  against  formidable  obstacles.  The  first  compre 
hensive  suggestion  of  a  census  was  made  by  Vauban,  the  great 
engineer  and  scholar  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Seeing  the 
distress  into  which  France  had  been  plunged  by  the  long  wars 
of  Louis  XIV.,  and  deploring  the  heavy  and  unequal  burdens 
of  taxation  which  had  been  laid  upon  the  people,  he  entered 
upon  a  careful  survey  of  the  condition  of  France,  and  in  the 
first  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  developed  a  plan  to  sweep 
away  the  great  army  of  fiscal  officers  and  establish  a  uniform 
tax  on  all  the  property  of  the  realm.  This  he  called  the 
"  projet  d'une  dixme  royale,"  which  he  published  in  a  vol 
ume  addressed  to  the  king.  In  order  to  apply  his  plan,  it 
was  necessary  to  know  the  number  and  classes  of  the  popula 
tion.  His  method  of  estimating  the  number  was  peculiar. 
Selecting  a  portion  of  France  which  he  regarded  as  having  an 
average  density  of  population,  he  caused  it  to  be  accurately 
measured  and  its  population  estimated.  From  this  he  calcu 
lated  the  area  of  France  and  its  population ;  but  near  the  con 
clusion  of  his  book  he  appealed  to  the  king  to  provide  by  law 
for  the  numbering  of  the  people,  and  set  forth  in  strong  and 
eloquent  language  the  advantages  of  such  an  enumeration. 
"There  is  no  battalion,"  said  he,  "  in  the  kingdom,  however  in 
significant  it  may  be,  that  is  not  subject  at  least  to  a  dozen 
reviews  and  inspections  during  each  year.  If  such  pains  be 
taken  with  one  battalion,  of  how  much  greater  importance  it  is 
to  enumerate  and  review  the  condition  of  that  great  body  of 
the  people  from  which  the  king  draws  all  his  glory  and  all  his 
riches  !  "  This  book  appeared  in  January,  1707.  It  gave  great 
offence  to  Louis  XIV.,  because  it  assumed  that  the  glory  of  the 
realm  consisted  of  the  people  and  their  wealth,  and  it  further 
assumed  that  kings  and  ministers  needed  to  study  the  people 
and  their  wants,  in  order  to  the  proper  performance  of  their 
duties.  By  a  royal  decree  of  February  14,  1707,  the  book  was 
ordered  to  be  seized  and  burned  in  the  pillory,  and  all  the 
booksellers  were  forbidden,  under  heavy  penalties,  to  keep  or 
sell  it.  Vauban  survived  the  shock  of  this  disgrace  but  six 
weeks.  He  died  of  a  broken  heart.  The  treatment  he  received 


CENSUS.  199 

is  a  striking  illustration  of  that  arrogant  ignorance  which  refuses 
to  draw  instruction  from  the  only  true  source  of  knowledge  and 
statesmanship. 

Several  attempts  were  made  at  different  times  to  ascertain 
such  facts  relating  to  the  people  as  would  aid  the  French  mon- 
archs  in  making  their  military  levies ;  but  nothing  of  value  was 
accomplished  except  by  individual  effort.  In  the  latter  part  of 
the  reign  of  Louis  XV.,  M.  Gourney,  Minister  of  Commerce, 
organized  a  bureau  of  information,  which  gave  some  attention 
to  the  subject  of  population.  M.  Moheau,  who  was  attached  to 
this  bureau,  collected  some  important  statistics,  which  were  pub 
lished  by  order  of  the  government  in  1774.  In  1784  appeared 
the  work  of  M.  Necker,  Minister  of  Finance  of  Louis  XVI.,  en 
titled  "  Trait^  de  1'Administration  des  Finances,"  in  which  the 
number  and  condition  of  the  population  were  discussed.  But 
nothing  was  done  to  establish  a  census  until  after  the  Revolution 
of  1789.  Before  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  a  law  was 
passed  requiring  prefects  of  the  departments  to  prepare  from 
the  civil  registers  exact  annual  abstracts  of  the  number  of  mar 
riages,  births,  and  deaths.  This  law,  with  some  modifications,  is 
still  in  force.  In  1801,  the  legislature  decreed  that  national  cen 
suses  should  be  taken  once  in  five  years.  A  census  was  taken  in 
1 80 1,  and  another  in  1806.  No  other  was  taken  under  the  first 
Napoleon.  The  next  general  enumeration  was  taken  in  1821, 
six  years  after  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons.  Since  that  year 
quinquennial  censuses  have  been  the  rule. 

Belgium  has  carried  the  work  of  census-taking  to  a  high  de 
gree  of  thoroughness  and  completeness  since  the  revolution 
which  made  her  an  independent  sovereignty.  This  revolution 
was  immediately  followed  by  active  efforts  in  the  direction  of 
statistics.  One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  provisional  government, 
in  1831,  was  the  creation  of  a  special  statistical  service.  In 
1841,  a  central  commission  of  statistics  was  established  by  royal 
decree,  with  which  M.  Ouetelet  and  other  distinguished  statisti 
cians  have  been  connected  from  its  organization.  In  1843,  pro 
vincial  statistical  commissions  were  instituted  throughout  the 
kingdom.  In  1856,  a  law  was  enacted  newly  regulating  the 
mode  of  taking  the  census  and  keeping  the  civil  register.  It 
provided  that  a  general  census  should  be  taken  every  ten  years 
throughout  the  kingdom,  and  that  the  population  returns  should 
form  the  basis  of  representation.  The  census  was  to  be  taken  in 


200  CENSUS. 

such  a  manner  as  to  give  the  actual,  as  well  as  the  legal  popula 
tion.  The  prescribed  inquiries  included  surnames  and  Christian 
names,  sex,  age  by  year  and  month,  birthplace,  civil  status,  oc 
cupation  or  condition,  habitual  domicile,  and  residence,  whether 
town  or  country.  Three  schedules,  printed  in  the  French, 
German,  and  Flemish  languages,  were  distributed  and  collected 
throughout  the  kingdom  by  special  census  agents.  Both  the  dis 
tribution  and  collection  were  to  be  made  in  one  day.  Temporary 
census  bureaus  were  established,  one  for  each  province,  which 
were  to  receive  the  returns  of  the  agents  after  they  had  been 
revised  by  the  communal  juries,  —  bodies  appointed  for  each 
community,  and  consisting  of  officials  and  private  citizens.  The 
statistics  of  schools  and  public  institutions  were  taken  by  means 
of  special  schedules.  The  military  authorities  were  charged 
with  the  army  census.  The  refusal  to  give  information  to  the 
census  agents  was  punishable  by  fine  and  imprisonment.  The 
law  of  1856  also  contained  provisions  regarding  the  keeping  of 
civil  registers,  which  insured  greater  accuracy  in  the  recording 
of  the  movement  of  the  population.  Two  general  censuses  have 
been  taken  under  the  law  of  1856,  —  one  in  that  year  and  an 
other  in  1866.  In  the  latter,  comprehensive  inquiries  into  the 
agricultural,  mining,  and  manufacturing  industries  of  the  king 
dom  were  made.  In  1858,  a  special  census  of  deaf  mutes  ajid 
the  blind  was  taken.  The  central  statistical  commission  receives 
the  returns  of  the  successive  censuses,  yearly  abstracts  from  the 
civil  registers,  and  the  results  of  special  inquiries,  and  prepares 
the  whole  for  publication. 

Prussia.  —  As  in  many  European  countries,  Prussia  obtains 
her  population  reports  through  a  central  bureau  of  statistics, 
which  was  established  in  1805,  and  continues  to  the  present  day, 
though  with  some  modifications.  The  labors  of  the  bureau  are 
directed  to, —  I,  general  statistics;  2,  births,  marriages,  and 
deaths;  3,  schools  and  churches;  4,  medical  statistics;  and  5, 
statistics  of  mechanical  trades  and  manufactures.  From  1805  to 
1820  these  inquiries  were  made  annually,  but  since  the  latter 
date  information  relative  to  the  first,  third,  and  fourth  subjects 
was  collected  but  once  in  three  years.  When  the  Customs- 
Union  of  1834  was  established,  triennial  censuses  of  the  popu 
lation  were  authorized,  and  have  been  taken  regularly  since 
that  date.  At  first,  the  inquiries  concerning  population  were 
the  actual  population,  according  to  sex,  age,  birthplace,  religion, 


CENSUS.  201 

immigration,  and  emigration.  In  1840  the  enumeration  was 
made  nominative,  which  resulted  immediately  in  a  large  increase 
in  the  population  returns.  In  1846,  the  number  of  families  was 
determined,  and  in  1849  the  distribution  of  the  population  by 
habitations.  In  1858,  the  persons  of  the  two  sexes  between 
seventeen  and  forty-five  years  of  age  were  returned  in  five 
classes.  In  1861,  the  unmarried  and  widowed  were  specially 
classified.  With  the  census  of  the  same  year  an  inquiry  was 
added  in  reference  to  the  language  spoken  and  the- social  condi 
tion  and  occupations  of  the  population.  The  Prussian  census  is 
taken  by  civil  officers,  in  the  month  of  December,  on  one  day, 
by  means  of  printed  schedules.  Great  expedition  is  shown  in 
the  publication  of  the  returns.  In  addition  to  the  statistics  of 
population,  many  statistics  are  obtained  showing  the  nature,  ex 
tent,  and  distribution  of  real  property,  wages  and  salaries,  insur 
ance,  aid  and  co-operative  societies,  and  the  numerical  strength 
of  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  Churches. 

Austria.  —  During  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  and  the  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  no  censuses  were  taken  in  Austria 
except  such  as  were  connected  with  military  conscription  and 
inquiries  to  ascertain  what  portion  of  the  population  were  liable 
to  do  military  duty.  Separate  systems  of  enumeration  prevailed 
in  the  different  provinces,  and  the  materials  for  a  general  knowl 
edge  of  the  whole  population  of  the  empire  were  very  meagre. 
A  uniform  enumeration  was  made  throughout  the  empire  for 
the  first  time  in  1851 ;  but  its  results  were  so  imperfect  that  in 
1855  a  commission  of  high  administrative  officers  was  appointed 
for  the  preparation  of  a  new  census  law,  which  received  the 
imperial  sanction  in  1857.  By  its  provisions  the  military  needs 
of  the  state  were  no  longer  the  main  motive  for  a  census ;  but 
statistics  of  population,  wealth,  and  industry  were  to  be  obtained 
as  a  basis  for  the  safe  conduct  of  public  affairs.  It  provided 
that  a  census,  based  on  the  actual  population,  should  be  taken 
once  in  six  years,  exclusively  by  the  civil  authorities.  Printed 
schedules  were  distributed  by  municipal  and  administrative  offi 
cers,  to  be  filled  up  by  the  heads  of  families,  owners  of  tene 
ment-houses,  and  those  in  charge  of  convents,  schools,  and 
public  institutions.  Detailed  printed  instructions  accompanied 
the  schedules.  Those  who  intentionally  failed  to  furnish  the 
desired  information  were  punished  by  fine  and  imprisonment. 
The  schedules  called  for  information  under  the  following  heads : 


202  CENSUS. 

composition  of  families,  including  servants;  age;  sex;  names 
and  titles ;  civil  status  ;  social  condition ;  religion ;  occupation  ; 
marriages,  births,  and  deaths ;  the  number  of  cities,  towns,  ham 
lets,  villages,  dwellings,  and  renters.  The  number  of  Austrian 
subjects  living  in  foreign  parts  was  obtained  through  the  impe 
rial  legations.  The  census  of  the  naval  and  military  population 
was  separately  taken  by  the  proper  authorities.  In  1828,  a  cen 
tral  bureau  of  statistics  was  created,  and  charged  with  the  duty 
of  consolidating  the  census  returns  and  preparing  them  for  pub 
lication. 

Russia.  —  Partial  censuses  were  taken  by  order  of  the  Russian 
government  in  1700,  1704,  1705,  and  1710.  In  1718,  Peter  the 
Great  required  all  landed  proprietors  to  make  a  declaration  of 
the  number  of  serfs  belonging  to  each.  The  same  year  he  or 
ganized  a  special  commission  to  visit  the  separate  provinces  of 
his  empire,  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  general  census.  No 
enumeration  of  females  was  made  in  these  early  censuses,  which 
were  taken  solely  for  the  purposes  of  revenue  and  military  con 
scription.  A  decree  of  1722  directed  that  a  census  should  be 
taken  once  in  twenty  years ;  but  this  interval  of  time  was  not 
regularly  observed  during  the  remainder  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury.  In  1802  a  central  bureau  of  statistics  was  organized  under 
the  direction  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  who  superintended 
the  returns  of  population,  agriculture,  commerce,  and  industry. 
This  bureau  was  reorganized  in  1852  under  the  name  of  the 
statistical  commission.  The  commission  has  taken  censuses  in 
1812,  1815,  1834,  1850,  i860,  and  1870.  The  census  is  taken 
by  means  of  printed  schedules  distributed  by  the  local  authori 
ties,  who  are  made  responsible  for  the  proper  returns.  The 
work  of  consolidating  and  publishing  the  returns  devolves  upon 
the  statistical  commission. 

Norway.  —  A  decennial  census  was  instituted  in  Norway  in 
1815,  and  has  continued  up  to  the  present  time,  comprising 
inquiries  as  to  age,  sex,  civil  status,  number  of  families  and  hab 
itations,  useful  domestic  animals,  and  the  territorial  area  of  each 
district.  A  bureau  of  statistics  superintends  all  forms  of  public 
statistics  except  those  pertaining  to  the  administration  of  justice, 
public  education,  and  financial  administration.  Inquiries  are 
made  once  in  five  years  in  regard  to  the  condition  of  industry. 
Annual  exhibits  are  made  of  births,  marriages,  and  deaths,  of 
commerce  and  navigation,  of  the  administration  of  justice,  and 


CENSUS. 


.203 


of  the   population    suffering  from   physical   and    mental   disa 
bilities. 

Spain  paid  but  little  attention  to  public  statistics  after  her 
census  of  1798  until  1856,  when  a  central  statistical  commission 
was  organized,  under  whose  supervision  a  general  census  was 
taken  in  1857,  and  since  then  once  in  three  years.  The  census 
is  taken  in  one  night  by  government  officials  charged  with  the 
collection,  verification,  and  consolidation  of  the  returns.  A  final 
revision  is  made  by  the  statistical  commission. 

Switzerland.  —  The  original  constitution  of  the  Swiss  federa 
tion  required  a  census  to  be  taken  once  in  twenty  years.  Most 
of  the  inquiries  were  conducted  by  the  several  Cantonal  govern 
ments.  The  returns  were  not  uniform,  and  were  generally  in 
accurate.  In  1860  a  law  of  the  federal  assembly  prescribed  a 
decennial  census  for  the  whole  federation,  and  instituted  a  fed 
eral  bureau  of  statistics  under  the  direction  of  the  Interior  de 
partment.  The  first  census  under  the  new  law  was  in  1860. 
The  inquiries  included  sex,  age,  civil  condition,  origin,  birth 
place,  domicile,  religion,  language,  physical  disabilities,  immi 
gration,  the  distribution  of  real  property,  the  number  of  families, 
and  the  number  of  habitations  and  other  buildings.  The  sta 
tistical  bureau  is  endeavoring  to  extend  the  range  of  the  cen 
sus,  but  finds  its  efforts  somewhat  impeded  by  the  difficulty  of 
dealing  with  twenty-five  Cantonal  governments.  The  Cantonal 
statistics  collected  by  the  local  governments  are  consolidated 
and  published  by  the  central  bureau.  The  latter  is  endeavor 
ing  to  give  a  more  national  character  to  the  statistical  service. 
Until  a  few  years  ago,  the  different  Cantons  followed  different 
methods  in  the  collection  of  vital  and  mortuary  statistics,  but 
at  the  instance  of  the  bureau  they  have  now  adopted  a  uniform 
plan.  In  1866  the  central  bureau  initiated  the  census  of  live 
stock,  and  later  collected  very  full  statistics  of  railways,  savings 
banks,  and  fire-insurance  companies. 

Italy.  —  Soon  after  the  establishment  of  the  modern  kingdom 
of  Italy,  a  bureau  of  statistics  was  created,  in  1859  and  1860, 
with  ample  powers,  under  the  direction  of  Doctor  Maestri,  an 
eminent  statistician.  The  first  general  census,  which  was  to 
afford  the  basis  of  representation  in  the  national  parliament,  was 
taken,  December  31,  1861,  under  a  law  prescribing  general  enu 
merations  once  in  ten  years.  The  census  is  taken  in  one  day 
by  means  of  previously  distributed  schedules.  Since  1861  the 


204  CENSUS. 

central  bureau  has  been  charged  with  additional  inquiries  rela 
tive  to  mutual  aid  societies,  savings  banks,  public  charities, 
industrial  corporations,  libraries,  and  institutions  of  education. 

The  census  in  modern  Greece  dates  from  her  last  struggle  for 
independence.  The  first  general  enumeration  of  her  people 
was  made  in  1836.  From  that  date  censuses  were  taken  annu 
ally  until  1845,  since  which  time  they  have  been  taken  at  irregu 
lar  intervals,  viz.  1848,  1853,  1856,  1861,  and  1868. 

The  Statistical  Congress.  —  The  work  of  taking  modern  cen 
suses  has  been  greatly  facilitated,  and  the  value  of  the  results 
greatly  increased,  by  the  efforts  of  the  "  International  Statistical 
Congress,"  an  organization  which  resulted  from  the  Great  Expo 
sition  held  in  London  in  1851.  The  congress  is  composed  prin 
cipally  of  men  from  all  civilized  nations,  who  in  their  own  coun 
tries  are  members,  leaders,  and  chiefs  of  bureaus  of  statistics, 
or  who  have  charge  of  the  census.  Sessions  of  the  congress 
were  held  in  Brussels  in  1853,  Paris  in  1855,  Vienna  in  1857, 
London  in  1860,  Berlin  in  1863,  Florence  in  1867,  at  the  Hague 
in  1869,  and  the  eighth  and  last  at  St.  Petersburg,  August,  1872. 
The  census  has  been  a  leading  topic  of  discussion  by  the  con 
gress.  Statements  of  the  condition  of  the  census  movement  in 
the  various  countries  have  been  made,  and  the  congress  ear 
nestly  recommends  uniformity  in  the  census  inquiries,  in  order 
that  comparisons  of  the  vital  statistics  of  the  different  coun 
tries  may  be  made.  Many  valuable  modifications  have  been 
made  in  the  censuses  of  nearly  all  the  nations,  in  consequence 
of  the  suggestions  of  the  congress.  As  a  result  of  these  ef 
forts,  MM.  Quetelet  and  Heuschling  published  at  Brussels  in 
1865  a  volume  of  international  statistics,  in  which  the  popu 
lation  reports  of  the  United  States  and  of  all  the  leading 
states  of  Europe  are  collected  and  arranged  .in  comparative 
tables. 

2.  The  Census  of  the  United  States.  —  Considering  the  char 
acter  of  the  present  work,  the  census  of  the  United  States  should 
receive  much  more  attention  than  that  of  any  other  country. 
The  matter  will  be  distributed  under  three  heads :  — 

(i.)  The  Colonial  Period.  —  The  American  census  originated 
in  the  Colonial  period  of  our  history.  The  British  Board  of 
Trade  played  an  important  part  in  Colonial  affairs.  At  times  it 
was  almost  the  supreme  directing  power,  and  under  its  instruc 
tions  several  enumerations  of  the  population  of  the  Colonies 


CENSUS. 


20$ 


were  attempted.  The  tables  were  prepared  under  the  immediate 
direction  of  the  Colonial  governors  by  the  sheriffs  and  justices 
of  the  peace,  and  were  exceedingly  inaccurate.  Mr.  Bancroft, 
speaking  of  enumerations  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  says,  "  The  positive  data  in  those  days  are  half  the  time 
notoriously  false."  (History,  Vol.  II.  p.  450,  note.)  Speaking 
of  the  same  materials  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
he  says,  "  Nearly  all  are  imperfect."  (Vol.  IV.  p.  128,  note.) 
The  so-called  enumerations  should  rather  be  called  computa 
tions.  No  general  examination,  embracing  all  the  Colonies,  was 
ever  attempted.  The  tables  prepared  for  the  Board  of  Trade 
were  in  great  part  based  on  muster-rolls  and  returns  of  taxables. 
"  Enumeration  is  a  slow  and  laborious  process,"  says  Sir  G.  C. 
Lewis,  "  and  until  experience  has  taught  us  its  necessity  where 
correctness  is  required,  there  is  a  disposition,  especially  among 
uncultivated  people,  to  rely  upon  computation."  Besides,  the 
aggregates  found  in  the  tables  were  no  doubt  generally  too  large. 
"To  count,"  says  Doctor  Johnson,  "  is  a  modern  practice;  the 
ancient  method  was  to  guess;  and  when  numbers  are  guessed 
they  are  always  magnified."  That  no  accurate  enumerations 
of  population  were  made  in  the  Colonial  period  should  excite 
no  surprise.  The  census  had  not  yet  assumed  scientific  form 
and  definiteness.  England  took  her  first  census  in  1801,  and 
even  then  the  work  was  so  imperfectly  done  that  the  results 
were  of  no  great  value.  On  general  grounds  it  would  be  absurd 
to  suppose  that  the  Board  of  Trade  took  accurate  enumerations 
of  the  British  colonists  in  America  a  half-century  or  century 
before  England  counted  her  own  people.  Besides,  the  direct 
ing  authority  was  three  thousand  miles  distant  from  the  people 
to  be  enumerated,  and  the  sparseness  of  the  population,  scat 
tered  over  immense  areas,  as  well  as  the  free  and  independent 
modes  of  life  prevailing  in  many  localities,  made  thoroughness 
and  accuracy  impossible.  Superstition  also  opposed  census- 
taking.  In  1712,  Governor  Hunter  undertook  an  enumeration 
of  the  inhabitants  of  New  York.  In  writing  to  the  home  govern 
ment  he  excused  the  imperfection  of  the  returns  in  part  by  say 
ing  that  "  the  people  were  deterred  by  a  simple  superstition  and 
observation  that  the  sickness  followed  upon  the  last  numbering 
of  the  people."  (Colonial  History  of  New  York,  Vol.  V.  p.  339.) 
Governor  Burnett,  of  New  Jersey,  in  a  communication  to  the 
English  Board  in  1726,  alluding  to  an  enumeration  made  in 


206  CENSUS. 

New  York  three  years  before,  said :  "  I  would  have  then  or 
dered  the  like  accounts  to  be  taken  in  New  Jersey,  but  I  was 
advised  that  it  might  make  the  people  uneasy,  they  being  gen 
erally  of  a  New-England  extraction,  and  thereby  enthusiasts; 
and  that  they  would  take  it  for  a  repetition  of  the  same  sin  that 
David  committed  in  numbering  the  people,  and  might  bring  on 
the  like  judgments.  This  notion  put  me  off  from  it  at  that 
time,  but,  since  your  Lordships  require  it,  I  will  give  the  orders 
to  the  sheriffs  that  it  may  be  done  as  soon  as  may  be."  (Ibid., 

P-  7770 

The  tables  prepared  under  the  direction  of  the  Board  of 
Trade  are  so  inaccurate,  that  the  more  careful  of  recent  writers 
have  generally  preferred  to  construct  new  tables  rather  than 
rely  on  them.  Mr.  Bancroft  constructs  a  valuable  table,  show 
ing  the  population  at  different  dates  from  1750  to  1790.  (His 
tory  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  IV.  pp.  127,  128,  note.)  He 
uses  as  data  the  returns,  computations,  and  official  papers  of 
current  history,  and  also  private  letters  and  journals.  Mr. 
Bancroft  says :  "He  who  ....  will  construct  retrospectively 
general  tables  from  the  rate  of  increase  in  America  since  1790 
will  err  very  little."  In  1688,  the  period  of  the  English  Revolu 
tion,  the  population  of  the  Colonies  was  about  200,000.  The 
aggregates  found  in  three  tables  prepared  for  the  Board  of  Trade 
are  here  presented  (see  Bancroft,  Vol.  IV.  p.  128,  note)  :  — 

Year.  Whites.  Blacks.  Total. 

i7J4 375>75°  58>85°  434>6oo 

1727 502,000  78,000  580,000 

1754 1,192,896  292,738          1,485,634 

Mr.  J.  D.  B.  DeBow,  following  Holmes's  "Annals"  as  his 
chief  authority,  gives  these  other  totals  (Compendium  U.  S. 
Census,  1850,  p.  39)  :  — 

Year.  Total. 

1701 262,OOO 

1749 1,046,000 

1775 2,8O3,OOO 

(2.)  The  Continental  Period.  —  In  the  Continental  Congress 
the  question  early  arose,  How  shall  the  burdens  of  the  war  be 
distributed?  During  the  whole  struggle  for  independence, 
Congress  found  no  more  perplexing  question.  On  the  26th  of 
December,  1775,  that  body  authorized  and  directed  the  emis- 


CENSUS.  207 

sion  of  $3,000,000  in  bills  of  credit.  It  also  resolved  that  the 
thirteen  United  Colonies  be  pledged  for  the  redemption  of  these 
bills;  that  each  Colony  provide  ways  and  means  to  sink  its 
proportion  in  such  manner  as  it  sees  fit;  that  the  proportion  of 
each  Colony  be  determined  according  to  the  number  of  its  in 
habitants  of  all  ages,  including  negroes  and  mulattoes ;  and  that 
it  be  recommended  to  the  Colonial  authorities  to  ascertain  in 
the  most  effectual  manner  their  respective  populations,  and  to 
send  the  returns  to  Congress  properly  authenticated.  Most  of 
the  Colonies  failed  to  comply  with  this  recommendation.  Imme 
diately  after  the  adoption  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
Congress  began  to  discuss  the  form  of  a  confederation  to  be 
entered  into  by  the  States.  After  long  discussion  the  Articles 
of  Confederation  were  perfected,  and  submitted  to  the  States 
in  1777;  but  failing  of  an  earlier  ratification,  they  did  not  go 
into  operation  until  March  I,  1781.  The  ninth  article  declared: 
"  The  United  States  in  Congress  assembled  shall  have  authority 
....  to  agree  upon  the  number  'of  land  forces,  and  to  make 
requisitions  from  each  State  for  its  quota,  in  proportion  to  the 
number  of  white  inhabitants  in  such  State."  In  November,  1781, 
a  resolution  was  introduced  into  the  Congress  recommending 
to  the  several  States  that  they  cause  to  be  taken  and  transmitted 
to  Congress  the  number  of  their  white  inhabitants,  pursuant  to 
the  ninth  article  of  the  Confederation.  The  resolution  failed 
to  pass,  and  the  article  was  inoperative.  The  financial  ma 
chinery  provided  by  the  eighth  article  of  the  Confederation 
wholly  broke  down ;  rather,  it  was  never  set  in  motion.  In 
1783,  Congress  sought  to  induce  the  States  to  provide  new  ma 
chinery.  An  amendment  to  the  eighth  article  was  proposed, 
which  declared  that  "  All  charges  of  war  and  all  other  expenses 
that  have  been  or  shall  be  incurred  for  the  common  defence  or 
general  welfare,  and  allowed  by  the  United  States  in  Congress 
assembled,  except  so  far  as  shall  be  otherwise  provided  for, 
shall  be  defrayed  out  of  a  common  treasury,  which  shall  be 
supplied  by  the  several  States  in  proportion  to  the  whole  num 
ber  of  white  and  other  free  citizens  and  inhabitants,  of  every 
age,  sex,  and  condition,  including  those  bound  to  servitude  for 
a  term  of  years,  and  three  fifths  of  all  other  persons  not  com 
prehended  in  the  foregoing  description,  except  Indians  not 
paying  taxes  in  each  State ;  which  number  shall  be  triennially 
taken  and  transmitted  to  the  United  States  in  Congress  assem- 


2o8  CENSUS. 

bled,  in  such  mode  as  they  shall  direct  and  appoint."  (Journals 
of  Congress,  April  18,  1783,  Vol.  VIII.  p.  141.)  This  amend 
ment  did  not  prevail,  and  the  Articles  of  Confederation  re 
mained  unchanged  until  they  were  superseded  by  the  present 
national  Constitution.  The  proposed  amendment,  however,  con 
tains  the  original  suggestion  of  the  "  three-fifths  rule."  During 
the  Continental  period  no  general  enumeration  of  population 
was  secured.  Various  estimates  and  computations  were  pro 
duced  in  Congress  from  time  to  time,  but  they  came  no  nearer 
accuracy  than  those  made  in  the  Colonial  period.  Thus  far,  no 
complete  enumeration  had  been  effected ;  but  it  had  become 
clear  that  there  never  could  be  such  enumeration  until  the  work 
was  done  by  a  central  directing  authority.  It  was  left  to  the 
Constitution  to  give  us  first  an  enumeration  of  population,  and 
afterwards  a  national  census. 

(3.)  The  Constitutional  Period.  —  The  framers  of  the  Consti 
tution  had  few,  if  any,  more  difficult  questions  to  deal  with  than 
the  apportionment  of  representatives  and  direct  taxes.  After 
long  deliberation  the  matured  opinion  of  the  Federal  Conven 
tion  assumed  the  well-known  form  :  "  Representatives  and  direct 
taxes  shall  be  apportioned  among  the  several  States  which  may 
be  included  within  this  Union  according  to  their  respective  num 
bers,  which  shall  be  determined  by  adding  to  the  whole  number 
of  free  persons,  including  those  bound  to  service  for  a  term  of 
years,  and  excluding  Indians  not  taxed,  three  fifths  of  all  other 
persons.  The  actual  enumeration  shall  be  made  within  three 
years  after  the  first  meeting  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States, 
and  within  every  subsequent  term  of  ten  years,  in  such  manner 
as  they  shall  by  law  direct."  In  a  subsequent  clause  this  enu 
meration  is  called  a  census,  but  it  did  not  contemplate  a  census 
in  the  present  received  sense  of  that  word.  Enumerations  of 
the  people  have  almost  always  originated  in  military  or  fiscal 
necessities,  and  have  been  used  for  immediate  practical  ends. 
The  varied  and  important  uses  for  which  statistics  are  now 
gathered  are  altogether  modern.  But  while  the  framers  of  the 
national  Constitution  never  contemplated  a  census  that  should 
answer  the  thousand  questions  of  social  and  political  science, 
they  nevertheless  provided  an  instrument  by  which  many  of 
those  questions  are  now  answered.  At  its  second  session,  the 
First  Congress  passed  a  law  to  carry  the  constitutional  provis 
ion  into  effect.  It  was  approved  March  i,  1790.  As  this  law 


CENSUS.  209 

was  the  model  of  subsequent  legislation  upon  the  same  subject 
for  sixty  years,  its  leading  provisions  are  here  stated. 

The  marshals  of  the  several  judicial  districts  were  authorized 
and  required  to  cause  the  inhabitants  within  their  districts, 
excluding  Indians  not  taxed,  to  be  enumerated;  the  marshals 
were  empowered  to  appoint  as  many  assistants  as  the  service  re 
quired;  the  enumeration  was  to  commence  on  August  I,  1/90, 
and  was  to  be  completed  within  nine  months  thereafter;  the 
marshals  were  to  file  the  returns  with  the  clerks  of  their  respect 
ive  District  Courts,  who  were  directed  to  receive  and  carefully 
preserve  the  same;  the  aggregates  were  to  be  transmitted  to 
the  President  of  the  United  States  by  September  I,  1791 ;  each 
assistant  marshal  was  required  to  cause  a  correct  schedule  of 
the  inhabitants  enumerated  within  his  division,  duly  signed,  to 
be  set  up  for  inspection  at  two  of  the  most  public  places  within 
said  division ;  and  every  person  above  sixteen  years  of  age  was 
required  to  give  the  census-taker  all  necessary  information  in 
his  possession.  The  law  further  prescribed  the  necessary  oaths, 
penalties,  forms,  and  compensation.  Although  all  inquiries 
pertained  solely  to  population,  the  schedule  incorporated  in 
the  law  covered  two  or  three  items  of  information  not  strictly 
required  by  the  Constitution.  The  inquiries  were  six  in  num 
ber:  I.  Names  of  the  heads  of  families;  2.  Free  white  males 
of  sixteen  years  and  upwards,  including  heads  of  families ; 
3.  Free  white  males  under  sixteen  years;  4.  Free  white  fe 
males,  including  heads  of  families ;  5.  All  other  free  persons ; 
6.  Slaves.  Under  this  law  the  first  real  enumeration  of  popu 
lation  within  the  United  States  was  made. 

Just  before  the  census  law  of  1800  was  enacted,  two  learned 
societies  memorialized  Congress  on  the  subject.  The  Ameri 
can  Philosophical  Society,  of  which  Thomas  Jefferson  was  then 
President,  represented  that  the  decennial  census  offered  an  occa 
sion  of  great  value  for  ascertaining  sundry  facts  highly  impor 
tant  to  society,  and  not  otherwise  to  be  obtained.  It  therefore 
prayed  that  the  next  census  might  be  so  taken  as  to  present  a 
more  detailed  view  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  under 
several  different  aspects ;  such  as  the  effect  of  soil  and  climate 
on  human  life,  the  increase  of  population  by  birth  and  emigra 
tion,  and  the  conditions  and  vocations  of  the  people.  To  gain 
the  first  of  these  ends,  the  society  suggested  that  the  population 
should  be  much  more  minutely  analyzed  with  respect  to  age. 

VOL.  n.  14 


210  CENSUS. 

To  gain  the  second,  it  was  proposed  that  a  table  should  be  used, 
presenting  in  separate  columns  the  respective  numbers  of  native 
citizens,  citizens  of  foreign  birth,  and  aliens.  To  reach  the  third 
end,  it  was  proposed  that  the  number  of  free  male  inhabitants  of 
all  ages  engaged  in  different  professions  and  pursuits  should  be 
ascertained,  such  as  merchants,  agriculturists,  handicraftsmen, 
mariners,  etc.  The  other  memorial  came  from  the  Connecticut 
Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  of  which  Timothy  Dwight  was 
President.  It  had  in  contemplation  to  collect  the  materials  for  a 
complete  view  of  the  natural  history  of  man  and  society  in  this 
country.  Its  suggestions  were  similar  to  those  contained  in  the 
former  memorial,  but  were  less  detailed.  Both  memorials  were 
presented  to  the  Senate,  January  10,  1800,  and  were  referred  to 
the  committee  already  charged  with  drafting  a  census  bill.  They 
do  not  appear  to  have  attracted  any  attention.  In  the  year  1800 
the  national  legislature  was  poorly  prepared  to  appreciate  the 
value  of  such  a  census  as  these  memorialists  prayed  for ;  but  it  is 
interesting  to  note  the  fact  that  there  were  then  thoughtful  men 
in  the  country,  who  appreciated  the  importance  of  statistical  in 
vestigation,  and  who  saw  that  the  national  Constitution  had  pro 
vided  all  necessary  machinery  to  gather  its  materials. 

The  law  of  1800  contained  some  new  features  of  minor  impor 
tance.  The  schedule  was  considerably  extended.  It  registered 
the  name  of  the  county,  parish,  town,  etc.  where  the  family  re 
sided  ;  the  name  of  the  head  of  each  family ;  free  white  males 
under  ten  years  of  age ;  free  white  males  of  ten  and  under  six 
teen;  free  white  males  of  sixteen  and  under  twenty-six;  free 
white  males  of  twenty-six  and  under  forty-five ;  free  white  males 
of  forty-five  and  upwards.  The  last  five  inquiries  were  dupli 
cated  in  reference  to  females.  All  other  free  persons,  except 
Indians  not  taxed  and  slaves,  were  also  enumerated,  but  with 
out  distinction  of  age.  The  general  direction  of  the  census  was 
placed  in  the  State  Department,  where  it  remained  until  the 
passage  of  the  present  census  law. 

In  1810,  the  population  schedule  of  1800  was  used  without 
change  or  modification.  The  scope  of  the  census  was  enlarged 
so  as  to  embrace  other  statistics  than  those  relating  to  popula 
tion.  An  act  approved  May  I,  1810,  amendatory  of  the  census 
act  approved  March  I,  1810,  —  thereby  showing  that  the  en 
largement  was  an  afterthought, —  required  the  marshals  and 
their  assistants,  at  the  time  for  taking  the  enumeration,  to  take, 


CENSUS.  211 

under  the  direction  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  ac 
cording  to  such  instructions  as  he  should  give,  an  account  of 
the  several  manufacturing  establishments  within  their  several 
districts  and  divisions.  The  construction  of  the  schedule  was 
left  to  the  discretion  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  The  one 
used  was  a  mere  aggregation  of  items,  and  evinced  no  skill  in 
selecting  and  classifying  the  inquiries.  For  this  reason,  as  well 
as  for  the  further  one  that  the  manufacturers  were  but  poorly 
prepared  to  co-operate  with  the  census-takers,  the  results  ob 
tained  were  of  no  great  value. 

The  census  of  1820  presents  no  new  features  of  marked  im 
portance.  The  population  schedule  discriminated  between  for 
eigners  naturalized  and  not  naturalized,  while  slaves  and  free 
colored  persons  were  classified  with  respect  to  age.  A  new 
manufacturers'  schedule  was  introduced,  which  was  an  improve 
ment  upon  that  of  1810.  It  comprehended  fewer  details,  but 
was  much  more  discriminating  in  inquiries  and  more  scientific 
in  arrangement.  This  part  of  the  work,  however,  was  so  imper 
fectly  done  by  the  census-takers  that  the  results  obtained  pos 
sessed  but  little  value. 

In  the  census  of  1830  no  attempt  was  made  to  obtain  indus 
trial  statistics  of  any  sort.  The  schedule  made  a  more  minute 
classification  of  population  than  had  been  before  attempted. 
The  number  of  the  deaf  and  dumb  and  the  blind  in  the  three 
great  classes  of  white,  free  colored,  and  slave  population,  was 
ascertained  as  far  as  practicable  in  conducting  a  new  experi 
ment. 

In  1840  still  other  statistics  of  population  were  collected,  the 
number  of  insane  and  idiotic  people  was  recorded,  the  number 
of  persons  engaged  in  the  great  industries,  such  as  agriculture, 
mining,  manufactures,  and  commerce,  was  ascertained ;  likewise 
the  number  of  Revolutionary  pensioners.  Several  columns  were 
added  to  the  schedule  for  educational  statistics  of  universities 
or  colleges,  academies,  and  grammar,  primary,  and  common 
schools;  the  number  of  scholars  in  these  schools;  together 
with  the  number  of  white  persons  over  twenty  years  of  age  who 
could  not  read  and  write.  The  attempt  to  obtain  statistics  of 
industry  was  renewed,  and  an  extended  though  badly  arranged 
list  of  questions  was  incorporated  in  the  population  schedule. 
As  there  was  no  penalty  for  refusing  to  answer  these  questions, 
in  some  localities  the  people  refused  to  answer  them,  on  the 


212  CENSUS. 

ground  that  they  were  illegal  and  inquisitorial.  A  leading  jour 
nal  asked :  "  Is  this  Federal  prying  into  the  domestic  economy 
of  the  people  a  precursor  to  direct  taxes?  Is  nothing  to  escape 
its  inquisitors  or  tax-gatherers?  Is  it  worthy  of  the  dignity  and 
high  functions  of  the  Federal  government  to  pursue  such  petty 
investigations?"  (See  "Compendium  of  the  United  States 
Census,"  1850,  p.  12.)  The  industrial  statistics  obtained,  how 
ever,  were  the  most  valuable  yet  procured. 

There  have  been  two  important  events  in  the  history  of  the 
American  census  :  first,  the  incorporation  in  the  national  Consti 
tution  of  the  clause  requiring  a  decennial  enumeration  of  the 
people ;  secondly,  the  passage  of  the  law  under  which  the  last 
three  censuses  have  been  taken. 

As  the  time  for  taking  the  seventh  census  drew  near,  the  sub 
ject  began  to  attract  an  unusual  degree  of  attention.  A  census 
board,  consisting  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  the  Attorney-General, 
and  the  Postmaster-General,  was  created  by  an  act  approved 
March  3,  1849.  This  board  was  empowered  to  appoint  a  sec 
retary,  and  was  charged  with  the  duty  of  preparing  forms, 
schedules,  etc.  for  taking  the  next  census,  but  was  instructed 
not  to  incorporate  into  the  schedules  more  than  one  hundred 
questions  of  all  kinds.  At  the  next  session  of  Congress  the 
Senate  raised  a  special  committee  on  the  census,  and  imposed 
upon  it  a  similar  task.  Several  eminent  statisticians  were  called 
to  Washington  for  consultation.  As  the  result  of  this  prepara 
tory  work,  a  bill  was  finally  matured  and  passed  which  greatly 
extended  the  sphere  of  the  census.  This  act,  approved  May  23, 
1850,  is  entitled  "A  general  Act  providing  for  the  Census  of 
1850,  and  for  every  subsequent  Census."  It  created  a  census 
office  in  the  newly  created  Department  of  the  Interior,  and  placed 
the  taking  of  the  seventh  and  each  succeeding  census  under  the 
charge  of  an  officer  known  as  the  Superintendent  of  the  Census. 
The  six  schedules  incorporated  in  the  law  bore  the  following 
names  by  number:-  I.  "  Free  inhabitants."  2.  "  Slave  inhab 
itants."  3.  "  Persons  who  died  during  the  year  ending  June  I." 
4.  "  Productions  of  agriculture."  5.  "Products  of  industry." 
6.  "  Social  statistics."  Two  important  new  features  were  incor 
porated  in  the  first  schedule :  the  name,  age,  sex,  and  color  of 
each  person,  together  with  the  place  of  his  birth,  whether  State, 
Territory,  or  country,  were  required.  The  third,  or  mortality 
schedule,  contained  a  class  of  inquiries  wholly  new  in  the  Amer- 


CENSUS.  213 

ican  census,  which  led  to  valuable  results.  The  fourth,  fifth, 
and  sixth  schedules  related  to  subjects  that  had  received  some 
attention  in  previous  censuses,  but  they  were  now  for  the  first 
time  investigated  with  much  thoroughness.  The  census  of  1850 
was  a  great  improvement  on  all  its  predecessors,  and  went  far 
to  place  our  census  in  the  front  rank  of  national  enumerations. 
The  census  of  1860  was  taken,  under  the  superintendence  of 
Mr.  J.  C.  G.  Kennedy,  on  the  same  plan  as  that  of  1850,  with  but 
few  modifications.  Its  statistics,  however,  were  more  complete 
than  those  of  1850. 

Before  the  census  of  1870  was  taken,  an  attempt  was  made 
to  procure  a  new  law  which  should  provide  new  machinery  and 
remodel  the  old  schedules.1  An  elaborate  bill  passed  the  House 
of  Representatives,  but  failed  to  receive  the  sanction  of  the 
Senate.  The  census  of  1870  was  taken  under  the  law  of  1850, 
with  such  modifications  as  were  required  by  the  amendments 
to  the  Federal  Constitution.  Some  important  additions  to  the 
inquiries  were  also  made  by  the  Census  Office,  under  the  super 
intendence  of  Mr.  Francis  A.  Walker.  In  consequence  of  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  the  old  schedule  relating  to  slaves  was 
dropped.  To  meet  the  requirements  of  the  Fourteenth  Amend 
ment  to  the  Constitution,  two  columns  were  added  to  the  popu 
lation  schedule :  the  first,  to  obtain  the  number  of  male  citizens 
of  the  United  States  in  each  State  of  twenty-one  years  of  age 
and  upwards ;  the  second,  to  obtain  the  number  of  such  citizens 
whose  right  to  vote  is  denied  or  abridged  on  other  grounds 
than  rebellion  or  crime.  Many  changes  were  made  by  the 
Census  Office  in  the  forms  of  the  inquiries,  by  which  they  were 
rendered  more  definite  and  more  easily  understood.  Besides 
the  inquiries  concerning  "  place  of  birth,"  two  columns  were 
added  requiring  a  statement  of  the  parentage  of  each  person. 
This  has  enabled  us  to  know  the  number  of  our  people  born 
of  foreign  parents.  An  inquiry  was  also  added  concerning  the 
public  debt  of  towns,  cities,  counties,  and  States,  the  results 
of  which  are  very  interesting.  A  striking  new  feature  was  the 
publication  in  the  Report  of  fourteen  finely  engraved  graphic 
maps,  illustrating  various  classes  of  statistics.  They  represent 
the  density  of  the  total  population ;  the  distribution  of  the  col- 

1  A  full  history  of  the  attempt  to  procure  the  new  law  is  found  in  the  Remarks 
and  Speech  entitled  "The  Ninth  Census,"  April  6,  1869,  "The  Ninth  Census," 
December  16,1869,  and  "The  Fourteenth  Amendment  and  Representation,"  De 
cember  12,  1871,  all  found  in  the  first  volume. 


214  CENSUS. 

ored  and  foreign  elements  of  population ;  the  dispersion  over 
the  States  of  natives  of  the  leading  European  countries;  the 
illiteracy  and  the  wealth  of  each  section  in  contrast;  the  geo 
graphical  and  political  divisions  of  the  United  States  at  each 
period  from  the  organization  of  the  government  to  1870;  the 
range  in  degree  of  four  leading  groups  of  diseases;  and  the 
range  in  degree  of  five  principal  agricultural  products. 

The  ninth  census  was  completed  in  a  much  shorter  space  of 
time  than  any  of  its  predecessors.  The  actual  enumeration  of 
inhabitants  began  on  June  I,  1870,  and  was  completed  on  the  9th 
of  January,  1871.  On  the  1st  of  November,  1872,  the  Superin 
tendent  announced  the  completion  of  his  report.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say,  that  the  reports  of  the  ninth  census  form  one  of 
the  noblest  contributions  which  any  country  has  ever  made  to 
statistical  science. 

It  clearly  appears  from  this  historical  review,  that  the  census 
of  the  United  States  is  the  result  of  a  uniform  and  steady 
development.  Its  germ  is  found  in  the  national  Constitution, 
and  its  epochs  of  growth  are  the  periods  of  the  recurring  de 
cennial  enumerations.  Instead  of  one  schedule,  comprehending 
six  inquiries,  as  in  1790,  we  now  have  five  schedules,  compre 
hending  about  one  hundred  inquiries.  Two  other  series  of  facts 
exhibit  this  growth  in  a  manner  equally  striking;  viz.  the  offi 
cial  publication  of  the  results  of  the  successive  censuses,  and 
the  total  cost  of  each  census.  These  facts  are  shown  in  the  fol 
lowing  exhibit. 

1790.  "Return  of  the  whole  Number  of  Persons  within  the 
several  Districts  of  the  United  States,"  etc.,  —  an  octavo  pam 
phlet  of  52  pages,  published  in  1792.  Cost  of  first  census, 
$44,377-18. 

1800.  "  Return  of  the  whole  Number  of  Persons  within  the 
several  Districts  of  the  United  States,"  etc.,  —  a  folio  of  78 
pages,  published  in  1801.  Cost  of  second  census,  $66,609.04. 

1810.  The  report  of  this  census  was  in  two  folio  volumes : 
I.  "  Aggregate  Amount  of  Each  Description  of  Persons  within 
the  United  States,"  etc.,  —  an  oblong  folio  of  90  pages,  the  date 
of  publication  not  named.  II.  "A  Series  of  Tables  showing 
the  several  Branches  of  American  Manufactures,  exhibiting 
them  in  every  county  of  the  Union,  so  far  as  they  are  returned 
in  the  reports  of  the  Marshals  and  the  Secretaries  of  the  Terri 
tories,  and  of  their  respective  Assistants,  in  the  autumn  of  1810; 


CENSUS.  215 

together  with  returns  of  certain  doubtful  goods,  productions 
of  the  soil,  and  agricultural  stock,  so  far  as  they  have  been  re 
ceived," —  170  pp.,  4to.  Cost  of  third  census,  $178,444.67. 

1820.  I.  "  Census  for  1820,"  etc.,  —  a  folio  of  164  pp.,  pub 
lished  in  1821.  II.  "Digest  of  Accounts  of  Manufacturing 
Establishments,"  etc.,  —  a  folio  of  100  pp.,  1823.  Cost  of  fourth 
census,  $208,525.99. 

1830.  "Fifth  Census  of  Enumeration  of  the  Inhabitants  of 
the  United  States," — a  folio  of  163  pp.,  1832.  (This  report  was 
so  badly  printed  that  Congress  required  by  law  a  republi- 
cation,  which  was  made  the  same  year  under  the  immediate 
direction  of  the  Secretary  of  State.)  Cost  of  the  fifth  census, 

$378,543.13. 

1840.  I.  "  Compendium  of  the  Enumeration  of  the  Inhabit 
ants  and  Statistics  of  the  United  States,"  —  a  folio  of  378  pp., 
1841.  II.  "  Sixth  Census  or  Enumeration  of  the  Inhabitants  of 
the  United  States,"  —  folio,  470  pp.,  1841.  III.  "Statistics  of 
the  United  States,"  etc.,  —  folio,  410  pp.,  1841.  IV.  "Census 
of  Pensioners  of  Revolutionary  and  Military  Service,  with  their 
names,  ages,  and  places  of  residence,"  etc., — 4to,  196  pp.  Cost 
of  sixth  census,  $833,370.95. 

1850.  I.  "The  Seventh  Census  of  the  United  States,"  —  4to, 
1022  pp.,  1853.  II.  "Statistical  View  of  the  United  States," 
—  8vo,  400  pp.,  1854.  III.  "Mortality  Statistics  of  the  Sev 
enth  Census,"  etc., — 8vo,  304  pp.,  1855.  IV:  "Digest  of  the 
Statistics  of  Manufactures,"  —  8vo,  143  pp.,  1859.  Cost  of 
seventh  census,  $1,329,027.53. 

1 860.  I.  "  Preliminary  Report  of  the  Eighth  Census,  1 860,"  — 
8vo,  284  pp.,  1862.  II.  "  Final  Report."  Vol.  I.  "  Population," 
694  pp.,  1864;  Vol.  II.  "Agriculture,"  292  pp.,  1864;  Vol.  III. 
"  Manufactures,"  746  pp.,  1865  ;  Vol.  IV.  "  Mortality  and  Mis 
cellaneous  Statistics,"  584  pp.,  1866.  Cost  of  eighth  census, 
$1,922,272.42. 

1870.  "  Ninth  Census  of  the  United  States."  Vol.  I.  "The 
Statistics  of  the  Population  of  the  United  States,  embracing  the 
tables  of  race,  nationality,  sex,  selected  ages,  .and  occupations, 
to  which  are  added  the  statistics  of  school  attendance  and  illit 
eracy,  of  schools,  libraries,  newspapers  and  periodicals,  churches, 
pauperism  and  crime,  and  of  areas,  families,  and  dwellings,"  — 
4to,  804  pp.,  1872.  Vol.  II.  The  Vital  Statistics  of  the  United 
States,  embracing  the  tables  of  deaths,  births,  sex,  and  age,  to 


216  CENSUS. 

which  are  added  the  statistics  of  the  blind,  the  deaf  and  dumb, 
the  insane,  and  the  idiotic,"  —  4to,  679  pp.,  1 872.  Vol.  III.  "  The 
Statistics  of  the  Wealth  and  Industry  of  the  United  States,  em 
bracing  the  tables  of  wealth,  taxation,  and  public  indebtedness, 
agriculture,  manufactures,  mining,  and  the  fisheries,  with  which 
are  reproduced,  from  the  volume  on  Population,  the  major  tables 
of  occupations," — 4to,  813  pp.,  1872.  Also,  "  A  Compendium 
of  the  Ninth  Census,  compiled  pursuant  to  a  concurrent  Reso 
lution  of  Congress,"  and  a  "  Statistical  Atlas  of  the  United 
States."  Cost  of  the  ninth  census,  $3,336,511.41. 

(4.)  State  Censuses.  —  In  most  of  the  States  of  the  Union  a 
census  is  required  at  some  time  within  the  interval  between  the 
national  censuses,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  the  basis  of 
representation  in  their  legislatures.  In  some  of  the  States  (for 
example,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  New  York)  the  enu 
merations  are  made  with  great  care,  and  many  valuable  statis 
tics  are  obtained  in  connection  with  them.  But  in  most  of  the 
States  nothing  more  than  a  simple  enumeration  is  attempted,  and 
this  is  made  with  little  accuracy.  In  all  the  States,  except  Con 
necticut,  Georgia,  and  West  Virginia,  a  census  is  authorized  or 
required  by  their  constitutions.  The  constitution  of  Indiana, 
adopted  in  1851,  requires  a  census  in  1853,  and  every  six  years 
thereafter.  The  constitution  of  Pennsylvania  requires  a  census 
to  be  taken  once  in  seven  years,  in  such  manner  as  the  legisla 
ture  may  direct.  In  Kentucky,  a  census  was  required  to  be 
taken  in  1857,  and  every  eight  years  thereafter.  In  the  follow 
ing  States  censuses  are  required  once  in  ten  years,  beginning  as 
follows:  Tennessee,  1841;  Michigan,  1854;  Illinois,  New  York, 
Wisconsin,  and  California,  1855;  Massachusetts,  Kansas,  Min 
nesota,  and  Oregon,  1865;  Alabama,  Arkansas,  Florida,  Iowa, 
Louisiana,  Nebraska,  Nevada,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina, 
and  Texas,  1875;  and  Missouri,  1876.  The  constitutions  of 
Maryland,  New  Jersey,  and  Rhode  Island  permit  the  taking  of 
a  census  once  in  ten  years.  The  constitution  of  Mississippi 
requires  a  census  to  be  taken  once  in  ten  years,  after  a  day  to 
be  fixed  by  the  legislature.  The  constitution  of  Maine  permits 
a  census  once  in  five  years,  and  requires  it  once  in  ten  years. 
Delaware  and  New  Hampshire  have  no  provisions  in  their  con 
stitutions  requiring  a  census.  The  constitution  of  Ohio  per 
mits  a  State  census  ;  for  many  years  the  legislature  has  provided 
for  a  State  statistician,  who  makes  annual  reports  on  vital  and 
other  statistics. 


CENSUS.  217 

The  classes  enumerated  in  the  several  State  censuses  are  as 
follows.  In  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  qualified  voters ;  in  Penn 
sylvania,  taxable  inhabitants;  in  Michigan,  white  inhabitants 
and  civilized  persons  of  Indian  descent  not  belonging  to  Indian 
tribes ;  in  Indiana,  white  male  inhabitants  over  twenty-one  years 
of  age ;  in  Illinois,  Oregon,  and  Texas,  white  inhabitants ;  in 
Maine,  the  whole  population,  except  foreigners  not  naturalized 
and  Indians  not  taxed ;  in  Nebraska  and  Wisconsin,  the  whole 
population,  except  Indians  not  taxed,  and  soldiers  and  sailors 
in  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States ;  in  New  York,  the 
whole  population,  except  aliens  and  colored  persons  not  taxed. 
In  all  the  other  States  where  a  census  is  required,  the  whole 
population  is  taken. 

Besides  the  works  already  referred  to,  the  following  may  be 
consulted  on  the  general  subject:  Sinclair  (Sir  John),  "  Analy 
sis  of  the  Statistical  Account  of  Scotland,"  Svo,  Edinburgh, 
1825;  Macaulay's  "History  of  England,"  Vol.  I.  chap.  3; 
McClintock  and  Strong,  "  Encyclopaedia  of  Biblical,  Ecclesi 
astical,  and  Theological  Literature  " ;  Smith,  "  Dictionary  of 
the  Bible,"  3  vols.,  Svo,  London,  1860-63;  Smith,  "Dictionary 
of  Greek  and  Roman  Antiquities,"  Svo,  London,  1842;  Bab- 
bage,  "  Ninth  Bridgewater  Treatise,"  Svo,  London,  1837;  "Jour 
nal  of  the  Statistical  Society  of  London,"  Vols.  I.  to  XXXIV., 
Svo,  London,  1839;  Hume,  "Essay  on  the  Populousness  of- 
Ancient  Nations,"  Philosophical  Works,  Vol.  III.,  Boston  edi 
tion,  1854;  Captain  John  Graunt  (Sir  William  Petty),  "  Natural 
and  Political  Observations  upon  the  Bills  of  Mortality,"  5th  edi 
tion,  i6mo,  London,  1676;  "  Annuaire  de  I'Economie  Politique 
et  de  la  Statistique,"  ie-28e  annee,  Paris,  1844-72;  "Journal 
des  Economistes,"  ie-28e  anne"e,  Paris,  1841-69;  "  Report  of  the 
Proceedings  of  the  International  Statistical  Congress,  Fourth 
Session,  at  London,  1860,"  4to,  London,'  1861  ;  "  British  Al 
manac  for  the  Year  1872,"  I2mo,  London,  1873;  Ad.  Quete- 
let,  "Statistique  Internationale"  (Population),  4to,  Bruxelles, 
1865  ;  and,  "  Physique  Sociale,  ou  Essai  sur  le  Developpement 
des  Facultes  de  1'Homme,"  Bruxelles,  1869,  2  vols.,  Svo;  Mo- 
reau  de  Jonnes,  "  Etat  Economique  et  Social  de  la  France  de- 
puis  Henri  IV.  jusqu'a  Louis  XIV.,"  Paris,  I867.1 

1  In  the  Cyclopaedia  this  article  is  credited  to  Mr.  Garfield  and  B.  A.  Hinsdale, 
President  of  Hiram  College.  It  is  proper  to  say  that  Mr  Garfield  cast  the  whole  ar 
ticle,  and  that  he  wrote  all  of  it  except  the  subsections  "  The  Jewish  Census,"  and 
"  The  Census  of  the  United  States,"  both  of  which  were  written  by  Mr.  Hinsdale. 


AMNESTY. 

SPEECH   DELIVERED   IN  THE   HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 
JANUARY  12,  1876. 


THE  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  Sec.  3,  imposed  civil 
disabilities  as  follows  :  "  No  person  shall  be  a  Senator  or  Representa 
tive  in  Congress,  or  Elector  of  President  and  Vice-President,  or  hold 
any  office,  civil  or  military,  under  the  United  States,  or  under  any  State, 
who,  having  previously  taken  an  oath  as  a  member  of  Congress,  or  as 
an  officer  of  the  United  States,  or  as  a  member  of  any  State  legislature, 
or  as  an  executive  or  judicial  officer  of  any  State,  to  support  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States,  shall  have  engaged  in  insurrection  or  re 
bellion  against  the  same,  or  given  aid  or  comfort  to  the  enemies  thereof. 
But  Congress  may,  by  a  vote  of  two  thirds  of  each  house,  remove  such 
disability." 

At  different  times  Congress  legislated  upon  this  subject,  removing 
•disabilities  both  from  individuals  and  from  certain  disabled  classes.  The 
following  act  was  approved,  May  22,  1872  :  "Be  it  enacted,  etc.,  (two 
thirds  of  each  house  concurring  therein,)  That  all  legal  and  political 
disabilities  imposed  by  the  third  section  of  the  Fourteenth  Article  of 
the  Amendments  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  are  hereby 
removed  from  all  persons  whomsoever,  except  Senators  and  Represent 
atives  of  the  Thirty- sixth  and  Thirty-seventh  Congress,  officers  in  the 
judicial,  military,  and  naval  service  of  the  United  States,  heads  of  de 
partments,  and  foreign  ministers  of  the  United  States."  This  act  left 
the  disabilities  imposed  by  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  resting  upon 
comparatively  a  small  number  of  persons,  —  Mr.  Garfield  says  in  the 
following  speech,  upon  only  seven  hundred  and  fifty. 

December  15,  1875,  Mr.  S.  J.  Randall,  of  Pennsylvania,  introduced 
this  bill  in  the  House  of  Representatives :  "  Be  it  enacted,  etc.,  (two 
thirds  of  each  house  concurring  therein,)  That  all  disabilities  imposed 
and  remaining  upon  any  person  by  virtue  of  the  third  section  of  the 
Fourteenth  Article  of  the  Amendments  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  be,  and  the  same  are  hereby,  removed,  and  each  and  every  per 
son  is  hereby  forever  relieved  therefrom." 


AMNESTY.  219 

January  6,  Hon.  J.  G.  Elaine  submitted  the  following,  which  he  said 
he  should  offer  as  an  amendment  at  the  proper  time  :  "  Be  it  enacted,  etc., 
That  all  persons  now  under  the  disabilities  imposed  by  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  Jefferson  Davis,  late  President  of  the  so-called  Confederate  States, 
shall  be  relieved  of  such  disabilities  upon  their  appearing  before  any 
judge  of  a  United  States  court,  and  taking  and  subscribing  in  open 
court  the  following  oath,  to  be  duly  attested  and  recorded,  namely : 
"  I,  A.  B.,  do  solemnly  swear,  or  affirm,  that  I  will  support  and  defend 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  against  all  enemies,  foreign  and 
domestic ;  that  I  will  bear  true  faith  and  allegiance  to  the  same ;  that  I 
take  this  obligation  freely,  without  any  mental '  reservation  or  purpose  of 
evasion ;  and  that,  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge  and  ability,  I  will  well 
and  faithfully  discharge  the  duties  of  a  citizen  of  the  United  States." 

Pending  this  subject,  Mr.  Garfield  addressed  the  House  in  the  follow 
ing  speech.  The  day  after  his  speech  was  delivered,  the  Randall  bill 
was  sent  to  the  Judiciary  Committee,  from  which  it  came  back  with  an 
amendment  requiring  the  person  who  wished  to  take  the  benefit  of  the 
proposed  amnesty  to  take  an  oath  of  allegiance  before  a  United  States 
judge,  or  a  State  court  of  record.  January  14,  the  bill  fell,  failing  to  re 
ceive  a  two-thirds  vote,  as  the  Constitution  requires. 


MR.  SPEAKER,  —  No  gentleman  on  this  floor  can  regret 
more  sincerely  than  I  do  the  course  that  the  debate  has 
taken,  especially  that  portion  which  occurred  yesterday.  To 
one  who  reads  the  report  of  that  discussion,  it  would  be  diffi 
cult  to  discover  the  real  question  at  issue,  or  to  learn  the 
scope  and  character  of  the  pending  measure.  I  regret  that 
neither  the  speech  of  the  gentleman  from  New  York,1  nor 
that  of  the  gentleman  from  Georgia,2  has  yet  appeared  in 
the  Record.  I  should  prefer  to  quote  from  the  full  report, 
but,  replying  now,  I  must  quote  them  as  their  speeches  ap 
peared  in  the  public  journals  of  yesterday  and  to-day.  But 
they  are  here,  and  can  correct  any  inaccuracy  of  quotation. 
Any  one  who  reads  their  speeches  would  not  suspect  that  they 
were  debating  a  simple  proposition  to  relieve  some  citizens  of 
political  and  legal  disabilities  incurred  during  the  late  war.  For 
example,  had  I  been  a  casual  reader  and  not  a  listener,  I  should 
say  that  the  chief  proposition  yesterday  was  an  arraignment  of 

1  Mr.  Cox.  2  Mr.  Hill. 


220  AMNESTY. 

the  administration  of  this  government  for  the  last  fifteen  years. 
If  I  had  been  called  upon  to  pick  out  those  declarations  in  the 
speech  of  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  which  embody  the  topic 
of  debate,  I  should  have  said  they  were  these :  — 

"  If,  with  the  history  of  the  last  fifteen  years  fresh  in  the  memory  of 
this  people,  the  country  is  prepared  to  talk  about  the  grace  and  magna 
nimity  of  the  Republican  party,  argument  would  be  wasted.  With  mas 
ters  enslaved,  intelligence  disfranchised,  society  disorganized,  industry 
paralyzed,  States  subverted,  legislatures  dispersed  by  the  bayonet,  the 
people  can  accord  to  that  party  the  verdict  of  grace  and  magnanimity, 
may  God  save  the  future  of  our  country  from  grace  and  magnanimity  !  "  1 

I  should  say  that  the  propositions  and  arguments  arrayed 
around  that  paragraph  were  the  centre  and  circumference  of  his 
theme.  Let  me,  then,  in  a  few  words,  try  to  recall  the  House 
to  the  actual  subject  of  this  debate. 

A  gentleman  on  the  other  side  of  the  House,  a  few  weeks 
ago,  introduced  a  proposition  in  the  form  of  a  bill  to  grant 
amnesty  to  the  persons  who  are  not  yet  relieved  of  their 
political  disabilities  under  the  Constitution.  That  is  a  plain 
proposition  for  practical  legislation.  It  is  a  very  important 
proposition.  It  is  a  proposition  to  finish  and  complete  forever 
the  work  of  executing  one  of  the  great  clauses  of  the  Consti 
tution  of  our  country.  When  that  bill  shall  have  become  a 
law,  much  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  will  have  ceased 
to  be  an  operative  part  of  the  Constitution.  Whenever  so 
great  and  important  a  matter  is  proposed,  a  deliberative  body 
should  bring  to  its  consideration  the  fullest  and  most  serious 
examination.  But  what  was  proposed  in  this  case?  Not  to 
deliberate,  not  to  amend,  not  even  to  refer  to  a  committee  for 
the  ordinary  consideration  given  even  to  a  proposition  to  repeal 
the  tax  on  matches.  No  reference  to  anybody ;  but  a  member 
of  the  House,  of  his  own  motion  and  at  his  own  discretion, 
launches  that  proposition  into  the  House,  refusing  the  privilege 
of  amendment  and  the  right  of  debate,  except  as  it  might  come 
from  his  courtesy,  and  proposes  to  pass  it,  declaring  as  he 
does  so  that  the  time  has  come  to  do  justice  to  an  oppressed 
people. 

Under  circumstances  like  these,  Mr.  Speaker,  a  large  number 
of  gentlemen  on  this  floor  felt  that  they  had  a  right — under  the 

1  Congressional  Record,  January  n,  1876,  pp.  345,  346. 


AMNESTY.  221 

rules  of  the  House  and  in  the  forum  of  justice  and  fair-dealing, 
an  undoubted  right  —  to  deliberate  on  the  proposition;  that  it 
should  be  open  for  amendment  and  debate.  Every  expression 
on  this  side  of  the  House  showed  that  we  were  earnestly  in 
favor  of  closing  the  drama  of  war  so  far  as  it  relates  to  dis 
abilities ;  that  it  should  be  closed  forever, —  closed  in  good 
faith  and  with  good  feeling.  We  deeply  regretted  that  the  at 
tempt  was  made  to  cut  us  off  from  deliberation  and  amend 
ment,  and  we  therefore  threw  ourselves  back  upon  our  rights ; 
and  it  is  by  virtue  of  those  rights  that  we  debate  this  question 
to-day. 

The  gentleman  from  Maine l  offered  a  criticism  on  the  bill. 
He  suggested  that  there  were  two  points  in  which  it  ought  to 
be  changed.  One  was  that  the  seven  hundred  and  fifty  persons 
who  are  still  forbidden  to  hold  office  under  the  Constitution 
should  have  free  and  absolute  amnesty  whenever  they  declare, 
by  taking  the  oath  of  allegiance  in  open  court,  that  they  want 
it;  that,  like  God's  mercy  and  perfect  pardon,  amnesty  should 
be  granted  on  the  asking  for  it.  It  was  suggested  that  we 
should  follow  the  rule  that  we  have  followed  hitherto  in  all  sim 
ilar  cases.  That  was  the  first  point.  Another  point  was  sug 
gested,  that  there  is  one  person,  and  only  one,  who  ought  to  be 
excepted  from  the  operation  of  the  proposed  law.  Now  these 
criticisms  may  have  been  wise,  or  they  may  have  been  unwise, 
as  a  matter  of  statesmanship,  but  they  were  questions  deserving 
debate,  deliberation,  and  answer. 

The  proposition  of  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  2  is  an 
affirmative  one,  and  should  be  supported  by  affirmative  reasons. 
If  we  allege  any  reasons  against  it,  we  ought  to  be  answered. 
Two  allegations  have  been  made :  first,  that  there  ought  to  be 
an  oath  of  allegiance  before  a  court;  and,  second,  that  one 
man  ought  to  be  excepted.  How  have  these  propositions  been 
met?  How  have  these  suggestions  been  answered?  The  first 
response  was  a  speech  full  of  brilliant  wit  and  personalities.  It 
was  like  joking  at  a  funeral  to  joke  on  such  an  occasion.  They 
have  been  answered,  in  the  second  place,  by  the  speech  of  yes 
terday,  which  arraigns  not  the  Republican  party  alone,  but 
arraigns  twenty-five  millions  of  people,  arraigns  the  history  of 
the  republic  for  fifteen  years,  including  everything  that  is  glori 
ous  in  its  record  and  high  and  worthy  in  its  achievements.  I 

1  Mr.  Elaine.  2  Mr.  Randall. 


222  AMNESTY. 

was  deeply  pained  that  such  an  arraignment  should  have  been 
made  on  such  a  subject.  If  the  gentleman  had  confined  him 
self  to  a  reply  to  the  argument  which  had  been  offered  to  show 
why  the  exception  should  be  made,  it  would  have  been  a  re 
sponse  pertinent  to  the  subject-matter  in  controversy.  While  I 
occupy  the  attention  of  the  House,  I  shall  endeavor  to  confine 
myself  to  the  question  and  to  the  speech  of  the  gentleman  from 
Georgia. 

Let  me  say  in  the  outset  that,  so  far  as  I  am  personally  con 
cerned,  I  have  never  voted  against  any  proposition  to  grant  am 
nesty  to  any  human  being  who  has  asked  for  it  at  the  bar  of  the 
House.  Furthermore,  I  appeal  to  gentlemen  on  the  other  side 
who  have  been  with  me  in  this  hall  many  years,  whether  at  any 
time  they  have  found  me  truculent  in  spirit,  unkind  in  tone  or 
feeling,  toward  those  who  fought  against  us  in  the  late  war. 
Twelve  years  ago  this  very  month,  standing  in  this  place,  I  said 
this:  "  I  believe  a  truce  could  be  struck  to-day  between  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  hostile  armies  now  in  the  field.  I  believe 
they  could  meet  and  shake  hands  together,  joyful  over  returning 
peace,  each  respecting  the  courage  and  manhood  of  the  other, 
and  each  better  able  to  live  in  amity  than  before  the  war."  I 
am  glad  to  repeat  word  for  word  what  I  said  that  day.  For  the 
purposes  of  this  speech  I  will  not  even  claim  the  whole  ground 
which  the  government  assumed  toward  the  late  rebellion.  For 
the  sake  of  the  present  argument,  I  will  view  the  position  of 
those  who  took  up  arms  against  the  government,  in  the  light 
least  offensive  to  them.  Leaving  out  of  sight  for  the  moment 
the  question  of  slavery,  which  evoked  so  much  passion,  and 
which  was  the  producing  cause  of  the  late  war,  there  were  still 
two  opposing  political  theories  which  met  in  conflict.  Most 
Southern  statesmen  believed  that  their  first  obedience  was  due 
to  their  State.  We  believed  that  the  allegiance  of  an  American 
citizen  was  due  to  the  national  government,  not  by  the  way  of  a 
State  capital,  but  in  a  direct  line  from  his  own  heart  to  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  Union.  Now,  that  question  was  submitted  to  the 
dreadful  arbitrament  of  war,  to  the  court  of  last  resort,  —  a  court 
from  which  there  is  no  appeal,  and  to  which  all  other  powers 
must  bow.  To  that  dread  court  the  great  question  was  carried, 
and  there  the  right  of  a  State  to  secede  was  put  to  rest  forever. 
For  the  sake  of  peace  and  union  I  am  willing  to  treat  our  late 
antagonists  as  I  would  treat  litigants  in  other  courts,  who,  when 


AMNESTY.  223 

they  have  made  their  appeal,  and  the  final  judgment  is  rendered, 
pay  the  reasonable  costs  and  bow  to  its  mandates.  But  our 
question  to-day  is  not  that,  yet  is  closely  connected  with  it. 
When  we  have  made  our  arguments,  and  the  court  has  rendered 
judgment,  it  may  be  that  in  the  course  of  the  proceedings  the 
court  has  used  its  discretion  to  disbar  some  of  its  counsellors  for 
malpractice,  for  unprofessional  conduct.  In  such  a  case,  a  mo 
tion  may  be  made  to  restore  the  disbarred  members.  Applying 
this  illustration  to  the  present  case,  there  are  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  people  who  are  yet  disbarred  before  the  highest  authority 
of  the  republic,  the  Constitution  itself.  The  proposition  is  to 
offer  again  the  privileges  of  official  station  to  these  people ;  and 
we  are  all  agreed  as  to  all  of  them  save  one. 

I  do  not  object  to  Jefferson  Davis  because  he  was  a  conspicu 
ous  leader.  Whatever  I  may  believe  in  theology,  I  do  not 
believe  in  the  doctrine  of  vicarious  atonement  in  politics.  Jef 
ferson  Davis  was  no  more  guilty  for  taking  up  arms,  than  any 
other  man  who  went  into  the  Rebellion  with  equal  intelligence. 
But  this  is  the  question :  In  the  high  court  of  war  did  he  prac 
tise  according  to  its  well-known  laws, — the  laws  of  nations? 
Did  he,  in  appealing  to  war,  obey  the  laws  of  war?  or  did  he  so 
violate  those  laws  that  justice  to  those  who  suffered  at  his  hands 
demands  that  he  be  not  permitted  to  come  back  to  his  old  privi 
leges  in  the  Union?  That  is  the  whole  question;  and  it  is  as 
plain  and  fair  a  question  for  deliberation  as  was  ever  debated 
in  this  House.  Now,  I  wish  we  could  discuss  it  without  any 
passion,  —  without  passionate  thoughts,  such  as  we  heard  ex 
pressed  yesterday.  The  words  were  eloquent,  for  the  gentleman 
from  Georgia  well  knows  how  to  utter  passionate  thoughts  with 
all  the  grace  and  eloquence  of  speech. 

What  answer  has  been  made  to  the  allegations  of  the  gentle 
man  from  Maine,  —  to  the  reasons  he  gave  why  a  full  amnesty 
should  not  be  offered  to  Jefferson  Davis?  The  gentleman  from 
Georgia  denies,  and  so  also  apparently  did  the  gentleman  from 
New  York,1  the  authenticity  of  the  charges  of  atrocities  at  An- 
dersonville.  The  gentleman  from  New  York  spoke  of  the  com 
mittee  from  whose  report  the  gentleman  from  Maine  read,  as  a 
"  humbug  committee."  The  gentleman  from  Georgia  spoke  of 
it  as  an  ex  parte  and  partisan  committee, —  a  committee  that 
wrote  and  reported  out  of  its  fury  and  rage.  Now,  Mr.  Speaker, 

i  Mr.  Cox. 


224  AMNESTY. 

I  am  unwilling  that  this  case  shall  turn  upon  the  mere  authority 
of  a  committee,  however  high ;  but  I  want  to  say,  without  argu 
ing  its  merits,  that,  whether  the  charge  was  just  or  unjust,  it  was 
a  charge  made  by  the  government  of  the  United  States.  I  mean 
to  place  the  responsibility  of  the  charges  on  the  high  ground  of 
the  authority  of  the  government,  which  no  self-respecting  man 
can  call  trivial  and  unworthy  of  his  serious  attention.  On  the 
4th  of  May,  1864,  the  Secretary  of  War,  speaking  with  the  au 
thority  of  one  of  the  Executive  Departments  of  the  national 
government,  addressed  a  communication  to  a  committee  of 
Congress,  which  I  will  read.  It  is  found  in  a  volume  of  reports 
of  committees  of  the  first  session  of  the  Thirty-eighth  Congress, 
1863-64,  and  is  as  follows:  — 

"  WAR  DEPARTMENT,  WASHINGTON  CITY,  May  4,  1864. 
"  SIR,  —  I  have  the  honor  to  submit  to  you  a  report  made  to  this  de 
partment  by  Colonel  Hoffman,  Commissary-General  of  Prisoners,  in  re 
gard  to  the  condition  of  Union  soldiers  who  have,  until  within  a  few  days, 
been  prisoners  of  war  at  Richmond,  and  would  respectfully  request  that 
your  committee  immediately  proceed  to  Annapolis  to  take  testimony 
there  and  examine  with  their  own  eyes  the  condition  of  those  who  have 
been  returned  from  Rebel  captivity.  The  enormity  of  the  crime  com 
mitted  by  the  Rebels  towards  our  prisoners  for  the  last  several  months 
is  not  known  or  realized  by  our  people,  and  cannot  but  fill  with  horror 
the  civilized  world  when  the  facts  are  fully  revealed.  There  appears  to 
have  been  a  deliberate  system  of  savage  and  barbarous  treatment  and 
starvation,  the  result  of  which  will  be  that  few,  if  any,  of  the  prisoners 
that  have  been  in  their  hands  during  the  past  winter  will  ever  again  be  in 
a  condition  to  render  any  service,  or  even  to  enjoy  life. 
"  Your  obedient  servant, 

"  EDWIN  M.  STANTON,  Secretary  of  War. 
"  HON.  B.  F.  WADE,  Chairman  of  Joint  Committee  on  Conduct  of  the  War."  1 

On  the  receipt  of  this  letter,  the  joint  committee  of  the  two 
houses,  known  as  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War, 
went  to  Annapolis,  to  hold  their  sessions  in  the  presence  of  the 
thousands  of  returned  prisoners  who  had  just  been  landed;  and 
as  the  result  of  their  deliberations,  and  after  taking  testimony  on 
the  spot  from  officers  and  men  who  had  just  returned,  they  re 
ported  not  only  their  opinions,  but  the  testimony  in  full,  in  the 
volume  which  I  hold  in  my  hand.  That  committee  was  com 
posed  of  Republicans  and  Democrats,  and  its  report  is  unan- 
1  House  Report  No.  67,  ist  Sess.  38th  Cong.,  p.  4. 


AMNESTY.  225 

imous.  The  Democrats  on  the  committee  were  among  the 
foremost  Democratic  members  of  the  Senate  and  House.  One 
of  them  was  Mr.  Odell,  of  New  York,  a  gentleman  not  now  liv 
ing,  who  was  one  of  the  best  men  that  party  has  had  on  the 
floor  of  this  House  since  I  have  been  a  member.  Another  was 
Senator  Harding,  of  Oregon.  That  committee  made  an  elab 
orate  report,  from  which  I  will  read  a  few  paragraphs :  — 

"  The  evidence  proves,  beyond  all  manner  of  doubt,  a  determination 
on  the  part  of  the  Rebel  authorities,  deliberately  and  persistently  prac 
tised  for  a  long  time  past,  to  subject  those  of  our  soldiers  who  have  been 
so  unfortunate  as  to  fall  into  their  hands  to  a  system  of  treatment  which 
has  resulted  in  reducing  many  of  those  who  have  survived  and  been  per 
mitted  to  return  to  us  to  a  condition,  both  physically  and  mentally,  which 
no  language  we  can  use  can  adequately  describe.  Though  nearly  all  the 
patients  now  in  the  Naval  Academy  Hospital  at  Annapolis  and  in  the 
West  Hospital  in  Baltimore  have  been  under  the  kindest  and  most  intel 
ligent  treatment  for  about  three  weeks  past,  and  many  of  them  for  a 
greater  length  of  time,  still  they  present  literally  the  appearance  of  living 
skeletons,  many  of  them  being  nothing  but  skin  and  bone ;  some  of 
them  are  maimed  for  life,  having  been  frozen  while  exposed  to  the  in 
clemency  of  the  winter  season  on  Belle  Isle,  being  compelled  to  lie  on 
the  bare  ground  without  tents  or  blankets,  some  of  them  without  over 
coats  or  even  coats,  with  but  little  fire  to  mitigate  the  severity  of  the 
winds  and  storms  to  which  they  were  exposed 

"  It  will  be  observed  from  the  testimony,  that  all  the  witnesses  who  tes 
tify  upon  that  point  state  that  the  treatment  they  received  while  confined 
at  Columbia,  South  Carolina,  Dalton,  Georgia,  and  other  places,  was  far 
more  humane  than  that  they  received  at  Richmond,  where  the  authori 
ties  of  the  so-called  Confederacy  were  congregated,  and  where  the  power 
existed,  had  the  inclination  not  been  wanting,  to  reform  those  abuses 
and  secure  to  the  prisoners  they  held  some  treatment  that  would  bear  a 
public  comparison  to  that  accorded  by  our  authorities  to  the  prisoners 
in  our  custody.  Your  committee,  therefore,  are  constrained  to  say  that 
they  can  hardly  avoid  the  conclusion,  expressed  by  so  many  of  our  re 
leased  soldiers,  that  the  inhuman  practices  herein  referred  to  are  the 
result  of  a  determination  on  the  part  of  the  Rebel  authorities  to  reduce 
our  soldiers  in  their  power,  by  privation  of  food  and  clothing,  and  by 
exposure,  to  such  a  condition  that  those  who  may  survive  shall  never 
recover  so  as  to  be  able  to  render  any  effective  service  in  the  field."  l 

I  am  not  now  discussing  the  merits  of  the  charge  at  all,  but 
am  showing  that  such  is,  and  for  twelve  years  has  been,  the  au- 

1  House  Report  No.  67,  ist  Sess.  38th  Cong.,  pp.  r,  3. 
IS 


226  AMNESTY. 

thoritative  official  charge  of  an  Executive  Department  of  the 
government,  and  of  a  joint  committee  of  the  two  houses.  So 
much  for  the  responsible  character  of  the  charge.  To  this  I 
should  add,  that  this  charge  is  believed  to  be  true  by  a  great 
majority  of  the  people  whom  we  represent  on  this  floor.  I  now 
inquire,  Is  this  charge  true? 

The  gentleman  from  Georgia  denies  generally  the  charge  that 
atrocities  were  practised  upon  our  prisoners  at  Andersonville. 
He  makes  a  general  denial,  and  asserts  that  Mr.  Davis  did  ob 
serve  the  humane  rules  of  modern  warfare.  As  a  proof,  he 
quotes  the  general  order  issued  by  the  President  of  the  Con 
federate  government,  under  which  the  prison  was  established,  — 
an  order  providing  that  it  should  be  located  on  healthy  ground, 
where  there  was  an  abundance  of  good  water,  and  trees  for 
healthful  and  grateful  shade.  That  is  a  perfect  answer  so  far  as  it 
goes.  But  I  ask  how  that  order  was  executed  ?  To  whose  hands 
was  committed  the  work  of  building  the  Andersonville  prison? 
To  the  hands  of  General  Winder.  And  who  was  General 
Winder?  He  was  a  man  of  whom  the  Richmond  Examiner 
used  these  words  the  day  he  took  his  departure  from  Rich 
mond  to  assume  command  of  the  proposed  prison:  "Thank 
God  that  Richmond  is  at  last  rid  of  old  Winder.  God  have 
mercy  upon  those  to  whom  he  has  been  sent !  "  He  was,  as 
the  testimony  in  the  Wirz  trial  shows,  the  special  and  intimate 
friend  of  Jefferson  Davis,  the  President  of  the  Confederacy, 
by  whom  he  was  detailed  on  this  business,  and  detailed  with 
the  send-off  that  I  have  read  you  from  a  paper  of  his  own  city 
warmly  in  the  interest  of  the  Rebel  cause.  What  next?  How 
did  General  Winder  execute  the  order  after  he  went  to  An 
dersonville? 

I  turn  to  the  record  of  the  Wirz  trial,  and  read  from  it  only 
such  authorities  as  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  recognizes,  — 
officers  of  the  Rebel  army.  The  gentleman  stated  yesterday 
that  there  was  nothing  in  this  book  connecting  the  head  of  the 
Confederate  government  with  the  Andersonville  atrocities.  Be 
fore  I  am  through  we  shall  see.  On  the  5th  of  January,  1864,  a 
report  was  made  concerning  those 'atrocities  by  D.T.  Chandler, 
a  lieutenant-colonel  of  the  Confederate  army.  This  report  was 
offered  in  evidence  in  the  Wirz  trial,  and  Colonel  Chandler  was 
himself  a  witness  at  that  trial,  and  swears  that  the  report  is  gen 
uine.  I  quote  the  following  from  the  report:  — 


AMNESTY.  227 

"  ANDERSON,  January  5,  1864. 

"  COLONEL,  —  Having,  in  obedience  to  instructions  of  the  25th  ultimo, 
carefully  inspected  the  prison  for  Federal  prisoners  of  war  and  post  at 
this  place,  I  respectfully  submit  the  following  report :  — 

"  The  Federal  prisoners  of  war  are  confined  within  a  stockade  fifteen 
feet  high,  of  roughly  hewn  pine  logs  about  eight  inches  in  diameter,  in 
serted  five  feet  into  the  ground,  inclosing,  including  the  recent  extension, 
an  area  of  five  hundred  and  forty  by  two  hundred  and  sixty  yards.  A 
railing  around  the  inside  of  the  stockade,  and  about  twenty  feet  from  it, 
constitutes  the  "  dead  line,"  beyond  which  the  prisoners  are  not  allowed 
to  pass,  and  about  three  and  one  fourth  acres  near  the  centre  of  the  en 
closure  are  so  marshy  as  to  be  at  present  unfit  for  occupation,  reducing 
the  available  present  area  to  about  twenty-three  and  one  half  acres,  which 
gives  somewhat  less  than  six  square  feet  to  each  prisoner.  Even  this  is 
being  constantly  reduced  by  the  additions  to  their  number.  A  small 
stream  passing  from  west  to  east  through  the  enclosure,  at  about  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty  yards  from  its  southern  limit,  furnishes  the  only  water  for 
washing  accessible  to  the  prisoners.  Some  regiments  of  the  guard,  the 
bakery,  and  the  cook-house,  being  placed  on  the  rising  grounds  bor 
dering  the  stream  before  it  enters  the  prison,  renders  the  water  nearly 

unfit  for  use  before  it  reaches  the  prisoners 

"  D.  T.  CHANDLER, 

Assistant  Adjutant  and  Inspector  General. 
"COL.  R.  H.  C  HILTON,  Assistant  Adjutant  and  Inspector  General"  * 

Here  is  an  official  exhibit  of  the  manner  in  which  the  officer 
detailed  by  Jefferson  Davis  chose  the  place  with  respect  to 
health,  running  water,  and  agreeable  shade.  He  chose  a  piece 
of  forest  ground  that  had  a  miasmatic  marsh  in  the  heart  of 
it  and  with  a  small  stream  running  through  it ;  but  the  troops 
stationed  outside  of  the  stockade  were  allowed  to  defile  the 
pure  water  before  it  could  reach  the  stockade ;  and  then,  as  if 
in  the  very  refinement  of  cruelty,  as  if  to  make  a  mockery  of 
the  order  quoted  by  the  gentleman  from  Georgia,  he  detailed 
men  to  cut  down  every  tree  and  shrub  in  the  enclosure,  leav 
ing  not  a  green  leaf  to  show  where  the  forest  had  been.  And 
subsequently,  when  the  burning  sun  of  July  was  pouring  down 
its  fiery  heat  upon  the  heads  of  those  men,  with  but  six  square 
feet  of  ground  to  a  man,  and  when  a  piteous  petition  was 
made  by  the  prisoners  to  Winder  to  allow  details  to  go  outside, 
under  guard,  and  cut  pines  from  the  forest  to  make  arbors  un 
der  which  they  could  shelter  themselves,  they  were  answered 
with  all  the  loathsome  brutality  of  malignant  hate,  that  they 

1  Wirz  Trial,  (Washington,  1868,)  p.  224. 


228  AMNESTY. 

should  have  no  bush  to  shelter  them.  And  thus,  under  the  fierce 
rays  of  the  Southern  sun,  they  miserably  perished.  These  last 
statements  are  made  on  the  authority  of  Ambrose  Spencer,  a 
planter  of  Georgia,  who  resided  within  five  miles  of  Anderson- 
ville.  I  quote  from  his  testimony :  — 

"Between  the  ist  and  i5th  of  December,  1863,  I  went  up  to  An- 
dersonville  with  W.  S.  Winder,  and  four  or  five  other  gentlemen,  out  of 

curiosity,  to  see  how  the  prison  was  to  be  laid  out I  asked  him  if 

he  was  going  to  erect  barracks  or  shelter  of  any  kind.  He  replied  that  he 
was  not ;  that  the  damned  Yankees  who  would  be  put  in  there  would 
have  no  need  of  them.  I  asked  him  why  he  was  cutting  down  all  the 
trees,  and  suggested  that  they  would  prove  a  shelter  to  the  prisoners 
from  the  heat  of  the  sun,  at  least.  He  made  this  reply,  or  something 
similar  to  it :  '  That  is  just  what  I  am  going  to  do  ;  I  am  going  to  build 
a  pen  here  that  will  kill  more  damned  Yankees  than  can  be  destroyed  in 
the  front.'  Those  are  very  nearly  his  words,  or  equivalent  to  them."  l 

So  much  for  the  execution  of  the  President's  order  to  locate 
the  prison. 

But  I  am  not  yet  done  with  the  testimony  of  Colonel  Chand 
ler.  A  subsequent  report  was  made  by  him  in  the  month  of 
August.  He  went  back  and  re-examined  the  horrors  of  that 
prison-pen,  and  as  the  result  of  his  examination  he  made  a  sec 
ond  report,  from  which  I  quote  the  last  few  sentences :  — 

"  ANDERSONVILLE,  August  5,  1864. 

"  COLONEL  :  .  .  .  .  My  duty  requires  me  respectfully  to  recommend  a 
change  in  the  officer  in  the  command  of  the  post,  Brigadier-General  J.  H. 
Winder,  and  the  substitution  in  his  place  of  some  one  who  unites  both 
energy  and  good  judgment  with  some  feeling  of  humanity  and  considera 
tion  for  the  welfare  and  comfort  (so  far  as  is  consistent  with  their  safe 
keeping)  of  the  vast  number  of  unfortunates  placed  under  his  control ; 
some  one  who  at  least  will  not  advocate  deliberately  and  in  cold  blood 
the  propriety  of  leaving  them  in  their  present  condition  until  their  num 
ber  has  been  sufficiently  reduced  by  death  to  make  the  present  arrange 
ment  suffice  for  their  accommodation  ;  who  will  not  consider  it  a  matter 
of  self-laudation  and  boasting  that  he  has  never  been  inside  of  the  stock 
ade,  a  place  the  horrors  of  which  it  is  difficult  to  describe,  and  which  is  a 
disgrace  to  civilization  ;  the  condition  of  which  he  might,  by  the  exercise 
of  a  little  energy  and  judgment,  even  with  the  limited  means  at  his  com 
mand,  have  considerably  improved 

"  D.  T.  CHANDLER, 

'  Assistant  Adjutant  and  Inspector-  General. 

"  COL.  R.  H.    CHILTON,  Assistant  Adjutant  and  Inspector  General  C.  S.  A.t  Rich 
mond,  Virginia"  2 

1  Wirz  Trial,  p.  359.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  226,  227. 


AMNESTY.  229 

Now,  what  do  honorable  gentlemen  suppose  would  naturally 
be  done  with  such  a  report  as  that?  Remember  that  Colonel 
Chandler  was  a  witness  before  the  court  that  tried  Wirz,  and  re 
affirmed  every  word  of  this  report.  If  he  is  living,  I  would 
gladly  make  a  pilgrimage  to  see  him  and  thank  him  for  the  hu 
manity  and  tenderness  with  which  he  treated  my  unfortunate 
comrades..  So  anxious  was  he  that  the  great  crime  of  Winder 
should  be  rebuked,  that  he  went  to  Richmond,  and  in  person 
delivered  his  report  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  a  member,  of 
course,  of  the  cabinet  of  Jefferson  Davis.  If  I  am  not  correct 
in  this,  I  believe  there  is  a  member  of  that  cabinet  now  on  this 
floor  who  can  correct  me.  Of  course,  being  a  soldier,  Colonel 
Chandler  first  delivered  his  report  to  the  Adjutant-General,  and 
that  officer,  General  Cooper,  on  the  i8th  of  August,  1864,  wrote 
upon  the  back  of  the  report  this  indorsement :  — 

"  ADJUTANT  AND  INSPECTOR  GENERAL'S  OFFICE, 

August  1 8,  1864. 

"  Respectfully  submitted  to  the  Secretary  of  War.  The  condition  of 
the  prison  at  Andersonville  is  a  reproach  to  us  as  a  nation.  The  engi 
neer  and  ordnance  departments  were  applied  to,  and  authorized  their 
issue,  and  I  so  telegraphed  General  Winder.  Colonel  Chandler's  recom 
mendations  are  coincided  in. 

"  By  order  of  General  S.  Cooper. 

"  R.  H.  CHILTON, 
Assistant  Adjutant  and  Inspector  General"  * 

Not  content  with  that  indorsement,  Colonel  Chandler  went  to 
the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  War  himself;  but,  the  Secretary 
being  absent  at  the  moment,  the  report  was  delivered  to  the 
Assistant  Secretary  of  WTar,  J.  A.  Campbell,  who  wrote  below 
General  Cooper's  indorsement  these  words,  with  his  signature : 
"  These  reports  show  a  condition  of  things  at  Andersonville 
which  calls  very  loudly  for  the  interposition  of  the  department, 
in  order  that  a  change  be  made." 

MR.  REAGAN.  Does  not  the  gentleman  know  that  the  Adjutant-Gen 
eral  could  only  have  made  such  an  order  by  direction  of  the  President  ? 

I  do  not  know  what  the  habit  was  in  the  Confederacy.  It  is 
not  so  in  this  government. 

MR.  REAGAN.  The  gentleman  will  allow  me  to  say,  that  all  persons 
familiar  with  the  business  of  that  office  know  that  the  Adjutant-General 

1  Wirz  Trial,  p.  230. 


230  AMNESTY. 

executes  direct  orders  made  by  the  President,  but  has  not  himself  author 
ity  to  make  such  orders. 

That  may  have  been  the  rule  in  the  Confederate  government ; 
but  it  was  never  the  rule  here.  The  Adjutant-General  of  our 
army  signs  no  order  except  by  direction  of  the  Secretary  of 
War.  The  Adjutant- General  is  the  clerk  of  the  Secretary  of 
War,  and  the  Secretary  of  War  is  in  turn  the  clerk  of  the  Presi 
dent.  But  the  gentleman  from  Texas 1  will  soon  see  that  he 
cannot  defend  Davis  by  the  indorsement  of  General  Cooper. 
The  report  did  not  stop  with  the  Adjutant-General.  It  was 
carried  up  higher  and  nearer  to  Davis.  It  was  delivered  to  As 
sistant  Secretary  Campbell,  who  wrote  the  indorsement  I  have 
just  read.  The  report  was  lodged  in  the  Department  of  War, 
whose  chief  was  one  of  the  confidential  advisers  of  Mr.  Davis, — 
a  member  of  his  official  family.  What  was  done  with  it?  The 
record  shows,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  a  few  days  thereafter  an  order 
was  made  in  reference  to  General  W'inder.  To  what  effect? 
Promoting  him !  Adding  to  his  power  in  the  field  of  his  in 
famy  !  He  was  made  Commissary-General  of  all  the  prisons 
and  prisoners  throughout  the  Confederacy.  That  was  the  an 
swer  that  came  as  the  result  of  this  humane  report  of  Colonel 
Chandler;  and  this  new  appointment  of  Winder  came  from  Mr. 
Seddon,  the  Confederate  Secretary  of  War,  by  order  of  the 
President.  All  appointments  were  made  by  the  President,  for 
the  gentleman  from  Georgia  says  that  they  carried  our  Consti 
tution  with  them,  and  hugged  it  to  their  bosoms.  But  that  is 
not  all.  The  testimony  in  the  Wirz  trial  shows  that  at  one  time 
the  Secretary  of  War  himself  became  shocked  at  the  brutality 
of  Winder,  and,  in  a  moment  of  indignation,  relieved  him  from 
command.  For  my  authority  upon  this  point  I  refer  to  the 
testimony  of  Cashmyer,  a  detective  of  Winder's,  who  was  a 
witness  before  the  Wirz  court.  That  officer  testified  that  when 
Mr.  Seddon,  Secretary  of  War,  wrote  the  order  relieving  Win 
der,  the  latter  went  with  it  to  Jefferson  Davis,  who  immediately 
wrote  on  the  back  of  it,  "  This  is  entirely  unnecessary  and  un 
called  for."  Winder  appears  to  have  retained  the  confidence 
and  approval  of  Davis  to  the  end,  and  he  continued  on  duty 
until  the  merciful  providence  of  God  struck  him  dead  in  his 
tent  in  the  presence  of  the  witness  who  gave  this  testimony. 

Now,  who  will  deny  that  in  the  forum  of  law  we  do  trace  the 

1  Mr.  Reagan. 


AMNESTY.  231 

responsibility  for  these  atrocities  to  the  man  who  is  before  us  to 
be  relieved  of  all  his  political  disabilities?  If  not,  let  gentlemen 
show  it.  Wipe  out  the  charge,  and  I  will  be  the  first  man  here 
to  vote  to  relieve  him  of  his  disabilities. 

Winder  was  allowed  to  go  on.  What  did  he  do?  I  will  give 
only  results,  not  details.  I  will  not  harrow  my  own  soul  by  the 
revival  of  those  horrible  details.  There  is  a  group  of  facts  in 
military  history  well  worth  knowing,  which  will  illustrate  the 
point  I  am  discussing.  The  great  Napoleon  did  some  fighting 
in  his  time,  as  did  his  great  antagonist,  the  Iron  Duke.  In  1809 
was  fought  the  battle  of  Talavera;  in  1811,  the  battle  of  Albu- 
era;  in  1812,  the  battle  of  Salamanca;  in  1813,  Vittoria;  in 
1815,  the  battles  of  Ligny,  Quatre  Bras,  Waterloo,  Wavre,  and 
New  Orleans;  and  in  1854  and  1855,  the  battles  of  the  Crimean 
war.  The  number  of  men  in  the  English  army  who  were  killed 
in  these  battles,  or  died  of  wounds  received  in  them,  amounted, 
in  the  aggregate,  to  12,928.  But  this  Major-General  Winder, 
from  April,  1864,  to  April,  1865,  tumbled  into  the  trenches  of 
Andersonville  the  dead  bodies  of  12,644  prisoners,  —  only  284 
less  than  all  the  Englishmen  who  fell,  or  died  of  wounds  re 
ceived,  in  the  great  battles  that  I  have  named.  Now,  Mr. 
Speaker,  I  have  simply  given  these  results.  Percentages  pale 
and  fade  away  in  the  presence  of  such  horrible  facts. 

And  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  denies  the  charge  of  atroci 
ties  at  Andersonville,  and  charges  us  with  greater  ones  !  I  will 
give  his  words  as  they  are  quoted  in  the  morning  papers : 
"  When  the  gentleman  from  Maine  speaks  again,  let  him  add 
that  the  atrocities  of  Andersonville  do  not  begin  to  compare 
with  the  atrocities  of  Elmira,  of  Fort  Douglas,  or  of  Fort  Dela 
ware;  and  of  all  the  atrocities,  both  at  Andersonville  and 
Elmira,  the  Confederate  government  stands  acquitted  from  all 
responsibility  and  blame."  I  stand  in  the  presence  of  that 
statement  with  an  amazement  that  I  am  utterly  incapable  of 
expressing.  I  look  upon  the  serene  and  manly  face  of  the  gen 
tleman  who  uttered  it,  and  I  wonder  what  influence  of  the  super 
nal  or  nether  gods  could  have  touched  him  with  madness  for 
the  moment,  and  led  him  to  make  that  dreadful  statement.  I 
pause,  and  ask  the  three  Democrats  on  this  floor  who  happen 
to  represent  the  Congressional  districts  wherein  are  located  the 
three  places  named,  if  there  is  one  of  them  who  does  not  know 
that  this  charge  is  fearfully  and  awfully  untrue.  [A  pause.] 


232  AMNESTY. 

Their  silence  answers  me.    They  are  strangers  to  me,  but  I  know 
they  will  repel  the  charge  with  all  the  energy  of  their  manhood. 

[Here  Mr.  Garfield  yielded  the  floor  while  the  following  letter,  offered 
by  Mr.  Platt,  was  read,  and  Mr.  Walker  made  the  accompanying  state 
ment. 

"  BROOKLYN,  N.  Y.,  January  12,  1876. 

"  To  HON.  T.  C.  PLATT,  House  of  Representatives,  Washington,  D.  C. :  - 
11  The  facts  justify  your  denial  of  cruelty,  inhumanity,  or  neglect  in 
the  treatment  of  prisoners  at  Elmira.  There  was  no  suffering  there 
which  is  not  inseparable  from  a  military  prison.  First,  there  was  no 
dead-line.  No  prisoner  was  ever  shot  for  attempting  to  escape.  Sec 
ond,  the  food  was  ample  and  of  the  best  quality.  Thousands  of  dollars 
were  expended  in  the  purchase  of  vegetables,  in  addition  to  the  army 
ration.  No  Congressman  in  Washington  eats  better  bread  than  was 
given  daily  to  the  prisoners.  The  beef  was  good,  and  of  the  same  qual 
ity  and  quantity  as  that  distributed  to  our  own  soldiers  guarding  the 
camp.  Third,  the  dead  were  not  buried  in  trenches,  but  the  remains 
were  placed  in  neat  coffins  and  buried  in  separate  graves,  with  a  head 
board  bearing  the  name,  company,  and  regiment,  and  time  of  death, 
and  all  were  buried  in  the  public  cemetery  at  Elmira.  Fourth,  there  was 
no  better  supplied  military  hospital  in  the  United  States  than  the  hos 
pital  in  the  prison  camp.  Fifth,  all  the  prisoners  were  comfortably  quar 
tered  in  new  wooden  barracks,  built  expressly  for  them.  From  the  time 
I  took  command,  in  September,  all  the  sawmills  in  the  vicinity  of  Elmira 
were  kept  constantly  running  to  supply  lumber  for  buildings,  etc.  The 
barracks  for  prisoners  were  first  built,  and  in  the  extreme  cold  weather 
of  winter  the  prisoners  were  all  in  barracks,  while  the  soldiers  guard 
ing  them  were  still  in  tents.  I  was  criticised  for  this  in  the  Army  and 
Navy  Journal,  I  think  it  was,  at  the  time,  by  an  officer  of  our  army. 
Sixth,  the  camp  and  all  the  buildings  were  well  policed,  and  kept  scrupu 
lously  clean.  Seventh,  the  mortality  which  prevailed  was  not  owing  to 
neglect  or  want  of  sufficient  supplies  or  medical  attention,  but  to  other 
and  quite  different  causes. 

"B.  F.  TRACY, 
Late  Commandant  Military  Post  Union" 

MR.  WALKER.  Mr.  Speaker,  as  the  member  from  the  district  in  which 
Elmira  Depot  is  located,  I  take  pleasure  in  indorsing  every  word  of 
Colonel  Tracy's  despatch.  I  was  almost  daily  at  Elmira  during  the  war, 
and  I  know  that  Confederate  prisoners  had  the  same  care  and  treatment 
that  the  Union  soldiers  had,  and  I  never  heard  a  complaint.] 

Mr.  Speaker,  the  lightning  is  our  witness.  From  all  quarters 
of  the  republic  denials  are  pouring  in  upon  us.  Since  I  came 


AMNESTY.  233 

to  the  House  this  morning,  I  have  received  the  following  de 
spatch  from  an  honored  soldier  of  Ohio,  which  tells  its  own 
story :  — 

"CLEVELAND,  OHIO,  January  12,  1876, — 10.33  A-  M- 
•'  To  GENERAL  GARFIELD,  House  of  Representatives :  — 

"  By  authority  of  Secretary  of  War  I  furnished  fifteen  thousand  Rebel 
prisoners  at  Elmira  with  the  same  rations  —  coffee,  tobacco,  coal,  wood, 
clothing,  barracks,  medical  attendance  —  as  were  given  to  our  own  sol 
diers.  The  dead  were  decently  buried  in  Elmira  cemetery.  All  this  can 
be  proved  by  Democrats  of  that  city. 

"  GENERAL  J.  J.  ELWELL." 

MR.  HILL.  By  permission  of  the  gentleman  from  Ohio,  I  desire  to 
say  that  there  was  no  purpose  on  my  part,  by  any  of  my  remarks  on 
yesterday,  to  charge  inhumanity  upon  anybody  at  Elmira,  or  anywhere 
else.  I  only  read  the  evidence  from  official  sources,  as  I  understood  it. 
I  simply  say  that  I  was  reading  the  evidence  of  cruelties,  in  the  language 
of  that  letter,  *"  inseparable  from  prison  life."  Then  I  read  of  the  small 
pox  epidemic  at  Elmira,  and  its  character.  But  the  remark  which  the 
gentleman  is  now  commenting  on  was  not  connected  with  any  charge  of 
inhumanity  upon  any  person  in  the  world.  I  wish  it  distinctly  under 
stood  that  I  meant  to  charge  inhumanity  upon  nobody.  I  was  simply 
speaking  of  those  horrors  that  are  inseparable  from  all  prison  life ;  and  I 
wound  up  my  statement  by  saying  that  the  official  reports  of  Secretary 
Stanton,  on  the  ipth  of  July,  1866,  after  the  war  was  over,  gave  the  rela 
tive  mortality  of  prisoners  in  Federal  hands  and  prisoners  in  Confederate 
hands,  and  that  the  mortality  of  Confederate  prisoners  in  Northern  pris 
ons  was  twelve  per  cent,  while  the  mortality  of  Federal  prisoners  in  Con 
federate  hands  was  less  than  nine  per  cent.  Now,  I  simply  said  that, 
judging  by  that  test,  there  was  more  atrocity  (if  you  please  to  call  it 
so)  —  I  meant,  of  course,  mortality  —  in  the  prisons  of  the  North  than 
in  those  of  the  South.  Let  the  gentleman  take  the  benefit  of  that  state 
ment.  I  simply  referred  to  the  report  of  Secretary  Stanton.  I  do  not 
undertake  to  say  to  what  special  cause  the  mortality  on  either  side  was 
attributable.  I  say  it  was  attributable  to  those  horrors  inseparable  from 
prison  life  everywhere  ;  and  I  simply  entered  my  protest  against  gentle 
men  seeking  to  stir  up  those  old  past  horrors  on  either  side  to  keep  alive 
a  strife  that  ought  to  be  buried.  That  is  all. 

I  am  glad  to  hear  what  the  gentleman  says ;  and  to  give  it 
more  force  by  contrast,  I  quote  again  the  words  he  used,  as  re 
ported  in  the  newspapers  this  morning  :  "  When  the  gentleman 
from  Maine  speaks  again,  let  him  add  that  the  atrocities  of 
Andersonville  do  not  begin  to  compare  with  the  atrocities  of 


234  AMNESTY. 

Elmira,  of  Fort  Douglas,  or  of  Fort  Delaware;  and  of  all  the 
atrocities,  both  at  Andersonville  and  Elmira,  the  Confeder 
ate  government  stands  acquitted  from  all  responsibility  and 
blame."  l 

I  refer  to  it  to  show  why  I  could  not  — 

MR.  HILL.  I  have  no  doubt  the  gentleman's  motive  is  good ;  but  he 
will  permit  me  to  remind  him  that  what  he  has  just  read  was  said  by  me 
after  reading  Secretary  Stanton's  report ;  and  of  course,  while  I  men 
tioned  prison  places  at  the  North,  I  did  not  mean  to  charge  inhumanity 
upon  any  one  as  a  class. 

But  let  me  say  another  word  to  close  this  branch  of  the 
subject.  The  only  authority  introduced  to  prove  the  pretend 
ed  atrocity  at  Elmira  was  an  anonymous  letter,  printed  in  the 
New  York  World.  The  Roman  soldiers  who  watched  at  the 
sepulchre  of  the  Saviour  of  mankind  attempted  to  disprove  his 
resurrection  by  testifying  to  what  happened  while  they  were 
asleep.  Bad  as  this  testimony  was,  it  was  not  anonymous ;  but 
in  this  case  the  testimony  is  that  of  a  shadow,  an  initial,  — 
nobody.  Stat  nominis  umbra.  What  the  substance  was  we 
know  not.  But  anonymous  as  this  letter  is,  it  would  have  been 
well  for  the  cause  of  justice  if  the  gentleman  had  been  kind 
enough  to  quote  it  all.  I  read,  I  believe,  from  the  very  book 
from  which  the  gentleman  quoted,  —  the  Life  of  Davis,  —  a 
sentence  omitted  by  him,  but  which  I  hope  he  will  have  printed 
in  his  speech.  It  is  this :  "  The  facts  demonstrate  that,  in  as 
healthy  a  location  as  there  is  in  New  York,  with  every  remedial 
appliance  in  abundance,  with  no  epidemic,"  etc.  So  that  even 
this  anonymous  witness  testifies  that  we  planted  our  Elmira 
prison  in  as  healthy  a  place  as  there  is  in  the  State  of  New 
York.  It  ought  to  be  added,  that  the  small-pox  broke  out  in 
that  prison  very  soon  after  the  date  of  this  letter ;  and  the  mor 
tality  that  followed  was  very  much  greater  than  in  any  other 
prison  in  the  North. 

How  we  have  kept  alive  our  vindictiveness  will  be  seen  by  the 
fact  that  Congress,  at  its  last  session  or  the  session  before  the  last, 
passed  a  law  making  the  Rebel  cemetery  at  Elmira  a  part  of  the 

1  Neither  this  quotation,  nor  anything  answering  to  it,  can  be  found  in  Mr.  Hill's 
speech  in  the  Record.  It  will  be  observed  that  he  does  not,  in  his  explanatory 
statements,  claim  that  the  quotation  did  him  injustice,  but  only  the  construction 
placed  upon  it.  It  seems  evident  that  Mr.  Hill  toned  his  speech  down  before  its 
publication. 


AMNESTY.  235 

national-cemetery  system  ;  and  to-day,  this  malignant  Adminis 
tration,  this  ferocious  Constitution-hating  and  South-hating  Ad 
ministration,  is  paying  an  officer  for  tenderly  caring  for  the 
enclosure  that  holds  the  remains  of  these  outraged  soldiers  ! 
At  another  place,  Finn's  Point,  in  Virginia,  we  have  within  the 
past  few  months  brought  another  Rebel  cemetery  under  the  law 
and  protection  of  our  national -cemetery  system.  All  this  out  of 
the  depths  of  our  wrath  and  hatred  for  our  Southern  brethren ! 

MR.  HILL.  In  response  to  what  the  gentleman  has  said,  I  desire  to 
state  as  a  fact  what  I  personally  know,  that  on  the  last  occasion  of  deco 
rating  soldiers'  graves  in  the  South,  our  people,  uniting  with  Northern 
soldiers  there,  decorated  in  harmonious  accord  the  graves  of  the  fallen 
Federals  and  the  graves  of  the  fallen  Confederates.  It  is  because  of  this 
glorious  feeling  that  is  being  awakened  in  the  country  that  I  protest 
against  the  revival  of  these  horrors  about  any  prison. 

So  do  I.  I  wish  this  same  fraternal  feeling  would  come  out 
of  the  graveyard  and  display  itself  toward  the  thirty  or  forty 
maimed  Union  soldiers  who  were  on  duty  around  this  Capitol, 
but  who  have  been  displaced  by  an  equal  number  of  soldiers  on 
the  other  side. 

There  is  another  point  that  the  gentleman  made  which  I  am 
frank  to  say  I  am  not  now  able  to  answer. 

[Here  followed  a  long  colloquy  touching  the  appointees  of  the  House, 
and  points  of  order,  in  which  several  members  participated.  Mr.  Gar- 
field  proceeded :  — ] 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  was  about  to  refer  to  another  point  made  by 
the  gentleman  from  Georgia  in  his  statement  of  the  number  of 
prisoners  taken  by  us  and  taken  by  them,  and  the  relative  num 
ber  of  deaths.  I  have  this  morning  received  from  the  Surgeon- 
General  references  to  all  the  pages  of  official  reports  on  that 
subject,  but  I  have  not  been  able,  in  the  hurried  moments  of  the 
session  since  I  arrived  here,  to  examine  the  figures.  The  gen 
tleman  from  Illinois1  has  made  up  a  part  of  the  statement,  which 
I  am  now  able  to  present.  That  statement  shows  that  during 
the  war  we  took  476,169  prisoners,  while  on  the  other  side  they 
took  188,145  prisoners.  This  is  a  statement  to  which  the  Sur 
geon-General  referred  me  in  a  note  received  since  I  took  my 
seat  in  the  House  this  morning ;  it  is  in  a  printed  report  on  the 
treatment  of  prisoners  of  war  by  the  Rebel  authorities,2  which 
gentlemen  can  examine  at  their  leisure. 

1  Mr.  Burchard.  2  Third  Session  of  Fortieth  Congress,  p.  228. 


236  AMNESTY. 

It  ought  to  be  added  in  this  connection,  that  the  conscription 
laws  of  the  Confederate  Congress  forced  all  able-bodied  citizens 
between  the  ages  of  seventeen  and  fifty  into  the  service,  while 
our  laws  limited  the  conscription  to  the  usual  military  ages. 
This,  of  course,  put  into  their  army  a  large  number  of  immature 
boys  and  broken-down  old  men,  among  whom  the  mortality 
would  naturally  be  greater  than  in  an  army  made  up  of  men  be 
tween  the  ordinary  ages. 

I  turn  now  to  another  point.  The  gentleman  from  Georgia 
makes  another  answer  concerning  these  atrocities,  —  that  what 
ever  was  suffered  by  the  prisoners,  for  at  least  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  time,  was  in  consequence  of  our  refusal  to  make 
an  exchange  of  prisoners,  —  was  because  we  would  not  give 
them  the  fresh  men  in  our  prisons,  and  take  in  return  our 
shadows  and  skeletons  that  were  in  theirs.  This  is  a  part,  and 
an  important  part,  of  a  piece  of  history  which  must  not  be 
omitted  in  this  debate ;  and  I  will  very  briefly  refer  to  its  lead 
ing  points. 

There  was  much  trouble  about  the  exchange  of  prisoners  be 
tween  the  two  belligerents ;  first,  because  for  a  long  time  we  did 
not  acknowledge  the  Confederates  as  belligerents.  We  hoped 
under  the  ninety-days  theory  of  Mr.  Seward  to  get  through  with 
out  recognizing  them,  but  that  hope  failed.  Our  enemies  were 
as  gallant  a  people  as  ever  drew  the  sword,  and  we  were  com 
pelled  to  recognize  them  as  a  belligerent  power.  Finally,  an 
arrangement  was  made  under  which  it  was  possible  to  exchange 
prisoners;  and  on  the  22d  of  July,  1862,  a  cartel  was  agreed 
upon  between  the  belligerents,  which  provided  that  within  ten 
days  after  a  prisoner  was  taken  he  should  be  paroled  and  sent 
home ;  and  whenever  it  was  announced  by  either  side  that  a 
certain  number  was  relieved  from  the  parole,  a  corresponding 
number  should  be  relieved  on  the  other  side,  and  in  that  way 
the  exchange  was  effected.  There  were  two  points  of  delivery 
of  prisoners.  One  was  at  Vicksburg.  Another  was  at  a  point 
near  Dutch  Gap,  in  Virginia.  And  the  exchange  went  on  for 
some  time,  until  a  series  of  events  occurred  which  interrupted 
it.  To  these  events  I  desire  to  call  attention  for  a  moment. 
The  first  in  order  of  time  was  a  proposition  which  was  read 
before  the  House  yesterday,  and  which  I  incorporate  in  my 
remarks,  not  for  the  sake  of  making  any  personal  point,  but  to 
preserve  the  continuity  of  the  history.  In  October,  1862,  a  reso- 


AMNESTY.  237 

lution  was  introduced  into  the  Confederate  Senate  by  Senator 
Mill,  of  Georgia, — 

"  That  every  person  pretending  to  be  a  soldier  or  officer  of  the  United 
States,  who  shall  be  captured  on  the  soil  of  the  Confederate  States  after 
the  ist  of  January,  1863,  shall  be  presumed  to  have  entered  the  territory 
of  the  Confederate  States  with  intent  to  excite  insurrection  and  to  abet 
murder,  and  that,  unless  satisfactory  proof  be  adduced  to  the  contrary 
before  the  military  court  before  which  his  trial  shall  be  had,  he  shall  suffer 
death." 

That  was  the  first  step  in  the  complication  in  regard  to  the 
exchange  of  prisoners  of  war.  That  resolution  appears  to  have 
borne  early  fruits.  On  the  22d  of  December,  1862,  Jefferson 
Davis,  the  man  for  whom  amnesty  is  now  being  asked,  issued 
a  proclamation,  a  copy  of  which  I  hold  in  my  hand.  I  read  a 
few  paragraphs :  — 

"  First.  That  all  commissioned  officers  in  the  command  of  said  Benja 
min  F.  Butler  be  declared  not  entitled  to  be  considered  as  soldiers 
engaged  in  honorable  warfare,  but  as  robbers  and  criminals  deserving 
death ;  and  that  they  and  each  of  them  be,  whenever  captured,  reserved 
for  execution." 

"  Third.  That  all  negro  slaves  captured  in  arms  be  at  once  delivered 
over  to  the  executive  authorities  of  the  respective  States  to  which  they 
belong,  to  be  dealt  with  according  to  the  laws  of  said  States. 

"  Fourth.  That  the  like  orders  be  executed  in  all  cases  with  respect  to 
all  commissioned  officers  of  the  United  States,  when  found  serving  in 
company  with  said  slaves  in  insurrection  against  the  authorities  of  the 
different  States  of .  this  Confederacy." 

Two  great  questions  were  thus  raised:  first,  that  a  certain 
class  of  officers,  merely  because  they  served  under  General  But 
ler,  should  be  declared  not  entitled  to  the  rights  of  prisoners  of 
war,  but  should  be  put  to  death  when  taken.  These  men  were 
serving,  not  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  but  the  Union.  They  did  not 
choose  him  as  their  general.  They  were  assigned  to  him ;  and 
by  this  proclamation  that  assignment  consigned  them  to  death 
at  the  hands  of  their  captors.  But  the  second  question  was  still 
more  important.  It  was  an  order  that  all  men  who  had  been 
slaves,  and  had  enlisted  under  the  flag  of  the  Union,  should  be 
denied  all  the  rights  of  soldiers,  and  when  captured  should  be 
dealt  with  as  runaway  slaves  under  the  laws  of  the  States  where 
they  formerly  belonged,  and  that  commissioned  officers  who 
commanded  them  were  to  be  denied  the  rights  and  privileges  of 


238  AMNESTY. 

prisoners  of  war.  The  decision  of  the  Union  people  everywhere 
was,  that,  great  as  was  the  suffering  of  our  poor  soldiers  at  An- 
dersonville  and  elsewhere,  we  would  never  make  an  exchange  of 
prisoners  until  the  manhood  and  the  rights  of  our  colored  sol 
diers  were  acknowledged  by  the  belligerent  power.  And  for 
long  weary  months  we  stood  upon  that  issue,  and  most  of  the 
suffering  occurred  while  we  waited  for  that  act  of  justice  to  be 
done  on  the  other  side. 

To  enforce  Mr.  Davis's  proclamation  a  law  was  passed  by 
the  Confederate  Congress,  reported,  doubtless,  from  the  Judi 
ciary  Committee  by  the  gentleman  who  spoke  yesterday,  and 
approved  May  I,  1863,  in  which  the  principles  of  the  proclama 
tion  were  embodied  and  expanded.  Here  are  three  sections:  — 

"  SEC.  4.  That  every  white  person,  being  a  commissioned  officer,  or 
acting  as  such,  who,  during  the  present  war,  shall  command  negroes  or 
mulattoes  in  arms  against  the  Confederate  States,  or  who  shall  arm,  train, 
organize,  or  prepare  negroes  or  mulattoes  for  military  service  against  the 
Confederate  States,  or  who  shall  voluntarily  aid  negroes  or  mulattoes  in 
any  military  enterprise,  attack,  or  conflict  in  such  service,  shall  be  deemed 
as  inciting  servile  insurrection,  and  shall,  if  captured,  be  put  to  death,  or 
be  otherwise  punished,  at  the  discretion  of  the  court. 

"SEC.  5.  Every  person,  being  a  commissioned  officer,  or  acting  as 
such,  in  the  service  of  the  enemy,  who  shall  during  the  present  war  ex 
cite,  attempt  to  excite,  or  cause  to  be  excited,  a  servile  insurrection,  or 
who  shall  incite  or  cause  to  be  incited  a  slave  to  rebel,  shall,  if  captured, 
be  put  to  death,  or  be  otherwise  punished,  at  the  discretion  of  the  court." 

"  SEC.  7.  All  negroes  and  mulattoes  who  shall  be  engaged  in  war  or 
be  taken  in  arms  against  the  Confederate  States,  or  shall  give  aid  or  com 
fort  to  the  enemies  of  the  Confederate  States,  shall,  when  captured  in  the 
Confederate  States,  be  delivered  to  the  authorities  of  the  State  or  States 
in  which  they  shall  be  captured,  to  be  dealt  with  according  to  the  pres 
ent  or  future  laws  of  such  State  or  States." 

"Approved,  May  i,  1863." 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  am  here  to  say  that  this  position  taken 
by  the  head  of  the  Confederacy,  indorsed  by  his  Congress,  and 
carried  into  execution  by  his  officers,  was  the  great  primal  trou 
ble  in  all  this  business  of  the  exchange  of  prisoners.  There  were 
minor  troubles,  such  as  claims  by  both  sides  that  paroles  had 
been  violated.  I  think  General  Halleck  reported  that  a  whole 
division  of  four  brigades,  Stevenson's  division,  which  had  not 
been  properly  exchanged,  fought  us  at  Lookout  Mountain;  but 


AMNESTY.  239 

that  may  have  been  a  mistake.  It  was  one  of  the  points  in 
controversy.  But  the  central  question  was  that  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  had  committed  itself  to  the  doctrine 
that  the  negro  was  a  man  and  not  a  chattel,  and  that  being  a 
man  he  had  a  right  to  help  us  in  fighting  for  the  Union ;  and 
we  would  perish  rather  than  that  he,  being  a  soldier,  should  not 
be  treated  as  a  soldier.  To  show  that  I  am  not  speaking  at 
random,  I  will  read  from  an  official  report  which  I  hold  in  my 
hand,  a  report  of  the  Secretary  of  War  on  the  difficulty  of  the 
exchange  of  prisoners.  This  paper  is  dated  August  24,  1864. 
I  think  it  is  a  misprint  for  1863;  but  no  matter  as  to  that. 
General  Meredith  reported  :  — 

"  To  my  demand  '  that  all  officers  commanding  negro  troops,  and 
negro  troops  themselves,  should  be  treated  as  other  prisoners  of  war,  and 
be  exchanged  as  such,'  Mr.  Ould  declined  acceding,  remarking  that  they 
(the  Rebels)  would  '  die  in  the  last  ditch '  before  giving  up  the  right  to 

send  slaves  back  to  slavery  as  property  recaptured 

"  I  am,  General,  very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

fk  S.  A.  MEREDITH, 
Brigadier- General  and  Commissioner  for  Exchange. 

"MAJOR-GENERAL  E.  A.  HITCHCOCK,   Commissioner  for  Exchange  of  Prisoners, 
Washington,  D.  C." 

Thus  it  appears  that  in  the  negotiation,  as  late  as  the  month 
of  August,  1863,  the  refusal  of  the  Rebel  authorities  to  treat  the 
negro  as  a  man  and  a  soldier  prevented  the  exchange  of  pris 
oners.  One  other  point  in  that  connection,  and  I  will  leave  this 
subject. 

I  have  here  a  letter,  dated  March  17,  1863,  written  by  Robert 
Ould,  Rebel  agent  for  the  exchange  of  prisoners,  and  addressed 
to  that  man  of  "  bad  eminence,"  General  Winder,  in  which  Mr. 
Ould,  speaking  of  his  arrangement  for  the  exchange  of  prison 
ers,  says :  "  The  arrangements  that  I  have  made  work  largely 
in  our  favor.  We  get  rid  of  a  set  of  miserable  wretches,  and 
receive  some  of  the  best  material  1  ever  saw."  Now,  that  single 
line,  in  a  communication  between  two  men,  not  par  nobile  fra- 
trum,  but  par  turpe  diabolorum,  is  proof  that  the  object  of  the 
atrocities  at  Andersonville  was  to  make  our  men  useless  to  us 
on  their  exchange ;  and  it  throws  light  upon  the  charge  about 
our  treatment  of  prisoners  held  in  the  North. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  return  from  all  this  to  the  direct  discus 
sion  of  the  question  touching  Jefferson  Davis.  It  seems  to 


240  AMNESTY. 

me  incontrovertible,  that  the  records  adduced  lay  at  his  door 
the  charge  of  being  himself  the  author,  the  conscious  author, 
through  his  own  appointed  instrument,  of  the  terrible  work  at 
Andersonville,  for  which  the  American  people  still  hold  him 
unfit  to  be  admitted  among  the  legislators  of  this  nation. 

Before  I  leave  that  subject,  let  me  say  another  word  on  another 
point.  I  see  around  me  here  a  large  number  of  gentlemen  who 
did  not  hesitate  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  government 
of  the  United  States,  who  did  not  hesitate  to  ask  to  be  relieved 
of  their  political  disabilities ;  and  I  ask  if  any  one  of  them,  in 
the  years  that  they  have  served  here  with  us,  has  ever  been 
taunted  with  the  fact  that  he  was  thus  relieved  of  disabilities  at 
his  own  request?  Can  any  one  of  them  recall  a  discourteous 
remark  that  has  ever  been  made  here  in  debate  because  he  had 
asked  and  accepted  the  amnesty  of  the  government?  Do  you 
want  us  to  say  that  the  remaining  seven  hundred  and  fifty  need 
not  ask  what  you  asked?  Do  the  honorable  gentlemen  who  are 
here  to-day  want  easier  terms  for  the  others  than  the  terms  on 
which  they  themselves  came  back? 

MR.  HILL.  I  desire  to  ask  a  question  for  information,  for  I  want  the 
facts,  and  my  recollection  differs  from  that  of  the  gentleman  from  Ohio. 
The  act  of  1872,  granting  a  partial  amnesty  to  quite  a  large  number,  does 
not,  as  I  understand  it,  make  any  such  requisition  as  is  contained  in  the 
amendment  of  the  gentleman  from  Maine. 

The  gentleman  is  right. 

MR.  HILL.  It  was  an  unconditional  amnesty,  like  that  contained  in 
the  bill  of  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania.  It  required  no  oath  or 
anything  of  the  sort. 

Certainly  not. 

MR.  HILL.  I  am  very  sure  that  it  was  under  that  act  that  I  was  re 
lieved.  And  I  never  applied  for  any  amnesty  at  all,  but  I  would  not 
have  felt  it  any  loss  of  pride  had  I  done  so. 

Certainly  not.  I  remember  very  well  that  we  relieved  a  large 
number  of  soldiers  in  one  act.  But  we  did  not  relieve  those 
who,  at  the  time  the  Rebellion  broke  out,  held  offices  and  com 
missions  under  the  government,  which  they  had  sworn  before 
God  they  would  protect  and  defend,  and  who  afterward  went 
into  the  Rebellion.  Those  are  the  people  that  we  have  required 
to  ask  for  amnesty. 


AMNESTY.  241 

MR.  HILL.  Allow  me  to  call  the  attention  of  the  gentleman  to  a 
correction  of  his  statement.  The  act  of  Congress  of  1872  relieved  all 
persons,  as  I  understand  it,  from  disabilities  who  had  been  merfibers  of 
any  State  legislature,  or  had  been  an  executive  or  judicial  officer  of  any 
State,  and  relieved  all  in  civil  or  military  service,  or  who  had  even  been 
in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  excepting  the  Thirty-fifth  or 
Thirty-sixth  Congress. 

The  Thirty-sixth  and  Thirty-seventh  Congresses. 

MR.  HILL.  Well,  one  or  the  other.  It  relieved  all  those  who  were 
not  in  Congress  at  the  time  of  secession,  all  members  of  State  legisla 
tures,  all  civil  and  military  officers,  except  the  few  remaining,  some  seven 
hundred  and  fifty.  You  granted  them  relief  without  any  condition  what 
ever. 

The  gentleman  will  observe  that  those  to  whom  he  refers  did 
not,  at  the  time  the  war  broke  out,  hold  commissions  as  United 
States  officers. 

MR.  HILL.     Yes. 

We  excepted  from  amnesty  all  those  who  held  in  their  hands 
a  commission  from  the  Federal  government,  and  who  had  sworn 
to  be  true  to  their  commission ;  and  we  did  this  because  they 
had  added  to  rebellion  —  I  must  use  words  —  the  crime  of  per 
jury  in  the  eyes  of  the  law. 

MR.  TUCKER.  Do  I  understand  the  gentleman  from  Ohio,  speaking 
here  to-day  of  kindness  to  gentlemen  on  this  side  of  the  House,  to  say 
that  any  man  who  held  a  commission  under  the  United  States  at  the 
time  the  war  broke  out,  and  who  went  into  secession,  was  guilty  of 
perjury? 

I  will  repeat  precisely  the  measured  words  I  used.  I  said 
"  the  crime  of  perjury  in  the  eyes  of  the  law."  In  view  of  the 
fact  of  flaming  war,  I  do  not  say  those  men  should  be  regarded 
as  ordinary  perjurers ;  I  never  said  that.  But  what  will  the 
gentleman  call  it?  By  what  other  name  does  the  law  know  it? 
I  did  not  make  the  dictionary,  nor  did  I  make  the  law.  The 
gentleman  certainly  knows  me  well  enough  to  know  that  I  am 
incapable  of  making  a  reference  to  any  personal  matter  in  this 
discussion.  He  must  see  that  I  am  using  the  word  as  it  is  used 
in  the  law. 

MR.  TUCKER.  I  do  not  ask  to  interrupt  the  gentleman  that  I  may  ex 
cuse  myself,  but  to  excuse  some  of  the  noblest  men  that  I  have  ever 
known,  and  of  whom  the  gentleman  might  be  proud  to  claim  to  be  a 
peer. 

VOL.    II.  1 6 


242 


AMNESTY. 


There  were  some  passages  in  the  speech  of  yesterday  which 
make  me  less  reluctant  to  speak  of  breaking  oaths.  The  gentle 
man  said :  — 

"We  charge  all  our  wrongs  upon  that  'higher-law'  fanaticism  that 
never  kept  a  pledge  nor  obeyed  a  law.  The  South  did  seek  to  leave  the 
association  of  those  who,  she  believed,  would  not  keep  fidelity  to  their  cov 
enants  ;  the  South  sought  to  go  to  herself ;  but  so  far  from  having  lost  our 
fidelity  for  the  Constitution  which  our  fathers  made,  when  we  sought  to 

go  we  hugged  that  Constitution  to  our  bosoms  and  carried  it  with  us 

But  to  you,  gentlemen,  who  seek  still  to  continue  strife,  and  who,  not  sat 
isfied  by  the  sufferings  already  endured,  the  blood  already  shed,  the  waste 
already  committed,  insist  that  we  shall  be  treated  as  criminals  and  op 
pressed  as  victims  only  because  we  defended  our  convictions,  —  to  you 
we  make  no  concessions.  To  you,  who  followed  up  the  war  after  the 
brave  soldiers  that  fought  it  had  made  peace  and  gone  to  their  homes,  — 
to  you  we  have  no  concessions  to  offer.  Martyrs  owe  no  apologies  to 
tyrants."  l 

There  is  a  certain  sublimity  of  assumption  in  this  which  chal 
lenges  admiration.  Why,  the  very  men  of  whom  we  are  talking, 
who  broke  their  oaths  of  office  to  the  nation,  —  when  we  are 
speaking  of  relieving  them,  we  are  told  that  they  went  out 
because  we  broke  the  Constitution  and  would  not  be  bound  by 
oaths.  Did  we  break  the  Constitution?  Did  we  drive  them 
out?  I  invoke  the  testimony  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  now 
a  member  of  this  House,  who,  standing  up  in  the  Secession 
Convention  of  Georgia,  declared  that  there  was  no  just  ground 
for  Georgia's  going  out;  declared  that  the  election  of  a  Pres 
ident  according  to  the  Constitution  was  no  justifiable  ground 
for  secession,  and  declared  that,  if  under  the  circumstances  the 
South  should  go  out,  she  would  herself  be  committing  a  gigan 
tic  wrong,  and  would  call  down  upon  herself  the  thunders  and 
horrors  of  civil  war.  Thus  spoke  Alexander  H.  Stephens  in 
1860.  Over  against  anything  that  may  be  said  to  the  contrary, 
I  place  his  testimony  that  we  did  not  force  the  South  out ;  that 
they  went  out  against  all  the  protests,  and  prayers,  and  humilia 
tion  that  a  great  and  proud  nation  could  make  without  absolute 
disgrace. 

MR.  DAVIS.  The  gentleman  has  used  a  term  that  touches  the  honor 
of  more  men  than  one  in  this  House  and  in  the  South.  I  desire,  there 
fore,  to  ask  him  this  question  :  Whether  the  war  did  not  result  from  a  dif- 

1  Congressional  Record,  January  u,  1876,  p.  351. 


AMNESTY.  243 

ference  of  views  between  gentlemen  of  the  North  and  gentlemen  of  the 
South  with  regard  to  what  was  the  true  construction  of  the  Constitution. 
That  being  so,  I  desire  to  ask  him  further,  whether  the  oath  of  fidelity  to 
the  Constitution  was  best  observed  by  those  people  of  the  section  which 
he  represents,  —  those  of  his  own  party,  who  declared  that  there  was  a 
law  higher  than  the  Constitution,  and  declined  to  obey  that  instrument, 
—  or  by  those  who  observed  faithfully  their  constitutional  obligations,  and 
who,  when  raids  were  made  upon  them,  merely  defended  themselves,  as 
they  understand  it,  from  unconstitutional  aggression  ? 

"  I  wish  to  say,  further,  for  myself  and  for  those  who  are  here  with  me, 
that  the  Constitution  having  been  amended,  —  the  '  higher-law '  party 
having  incorporated  in  that  instrument  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  cer 
tain  other  features  which  we  have  now  sworn  to  support  along  with  the 
rest  of  the  instrument,  —  if  in  the  future  we  fail  to  observe  that  oath  be 
fore  high  Heaven,  then  we  may  be  declared  perjured ;  then  we  may  be 
declared  rebels  ;  then  we  may  be  declared  traitors." 

If  the  gentleman  has  understood  me,  he  cannot  fail  to  see  that 
I  have  not  used  the  word  traitor  in  any  offensive  sense,  but  in 
its  plain  and  ordinary  acceptation,  as  used  in  the  law.  We  held 
that  the  United  States  was  a  nation,  bound  together  by  a  bond 
of  perpetual  union,  —  a  union  which  no  State  or  any  combina 
tion  of  States,  which  no  man  or  any  combination  of  men,  had 
the  right,  under  the  Constitution,  to  break.  The  attempt  of  the 
South  to  overthrow  the  Union  was  crime  against  the  govern 
ment,  —  the  crime  of  rebellion.  It  can  be  described  by  no 
other  name.  It  is  so  known  to  the  laws  of  nations.  It  is  so 
described  in  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court.  The  gentle 
man  from  North  Carolina 1  calls  the  war  on  one  side  a  raid.  I 
will  never  consent  to  call  our  war  for  the  Union  "  a  raid,"  least 
of  all  a  raid  upon  the  rights  of  any  human  being.  I  admit  that 
there  was  a  political  theory  of  State  rights,  —  a  theory  held, 
I  have  no  doubt,  by  gentlemen  like  the  gentleman  from  Vir 
ginia2  who  spoke  a  moment  ago, —  believed  in  as  sincerely  as 
I  believe  the  opposite,  —  which  led  them  to  think  it  was  their 
duty  to  go  when  their  State  went.  I  admit  that  that  greatly 
mitigates  what  the  law  calls  a  violation  of  an  oath.  But  I  will 

o 

never  admit — for  history  gives  the  lie  to  the  statement  in  every 
line  —  that  the  men  who  fought  for  the  Union  were  making  a 
"  raid  "  upon  the  rights  of  the  South. 

Read  the  Republican  platforms  of  1856  and  of  1860.  What 
did  we  contend  for  in  those  years?  Simply  that  slavery  should 

i  Mr.  Davis.  2  Mr.  Tucker. 


244  AMNESTY. 

not  be  extended  into  any  territory  already  free.  That  was  all. 
We  forswore  any  right  or  purpose  on  our  part  in  time  of  peace 
to  touch  slavery  in  any  State.  We  claimed  only  that  in  the 
Territories,  the  common  heritage  of  all  the  Union,  slavery 
should  never  travel  another  inch;  and,  thank  God,  it  no  longer 
pollutes  our  soil  or  disgraces  our  civilization.  Now  that  slavery, 
the  guilty  cause  of  the  Rebellion,  is  no  more,  and  that,  so  far  as 
I  know,  nobody  wants  it  restored, — I  do  not  believe  these  gen 
tlemen  from  the  South  desire  its  restoration  — 

MR.  HILL.     We  would  not  have  it. 

They  would  not  have  it,  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  says. 
Then  let  us  thank  God  that  in  the  fierce  flames  of  war  the  in 
stitution  of  slavery  has  been  consumed ;  and  let  us  hope  that 
out  of  its  ashes  a  better  than  the  fabled  Phcenix  will  arise,  — 
a  love  of  the  Union  high  and  deep,  "  As  broad  and  general  as 
the  casing  air,"  enveloping  us  all,  and  that  it  shall  not  be 
counted  shame  for  any  man  who  is  not  still  under  political  dis 
abilities  to  say,  with  uplifted  hand,  "  I  will  be  true  to  it,  and 
take  the  proffered  amnesty  of  the  nation."  But  let  us  not 
tender  it  to  be  spurned.  If  it  is  worth  having,  it  is  worth 
asking  for. 

And  now,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  close  as  I  began.  Toward  those 
men  who  gallantly  fought  us  on  the  field,  I  cherish  the  kindest 
feeling.  I  feel  a  sincere  reverence  for  the  soldierly  qualities 
they  displayed  on  many  a  well-fought  battle-field.  I  hope  the 
day  will  come  when  their  swords  and  ours  will  be  crossed  over 
many  a  doorway  of  our  children,  who  will  remember  with  pride 
the  glory  of  their  ancestors.  The  high  qualities  displayed  in 
that  conflict  now  belong  to  the  whole  nation.  Let  them  be  con 
secrated  to  the  Union  and  its  future  peace  and  glory.  I  shall 
hail  that  consecration  as  a  pledge  and  symbol  of  our  perpetuity. 
But  there  was  a  class  of  men  referred  to  in  the  speech  of  the 
gentleman  yesterday  for  whom  I  have  never  yet  gained  the 
Christian  grace  necessary  to  say  the  same  thing.  He  said  that 
amid  the  thunder  of  battle,  through  its  dun  smoke,  and  above 
its  roar,  they  heard  a  voice  from  this  side  saying,  "  Brothers, 
come  back."  I  do  not  know  whether  he  meant  the  same 
voice,  but  I  heard  a  voice  behind  us.  I  heard  that  voice,  and 
I  recollect  that  I  sent  one  of  those  who  uttered  it  through  our 
lines,  —  a  voice  owned  by  Vallandigham.  General  Scott  said, 


AMNESTY.  245 

in  the  early  days  of  the  war,  "  When  this  war  is  over,  it  will  re 
quire  all  the  physical  and  moral  power  of  the  government  to 
restrain  the  rage  and  fury  of  the  non-combatants."  It  was 
that  non-combatant  voice  behind  us  that  cried,  "  Halloo  !  "  to 
the  other  side ;  that  always  gave  cheer  and  encouragement  to 
the  enemy  in  our  hour  of  darkness.  I  have  never  forgotten 
and  have  not  yet  forgiven  those  Democrats  of  the  North  whose 
hearts  were  not  warmed  by  the  grand  inspirations  of  the  Union, 
but  who  stood  back  finding  fault,  always  crying  disaster,  rejoi 
cing  at  our  defeat,  never  glorying  in  our  victory.  If  these  are 
the  voices  that  the  gentleman  heard,  I  am  sorry  he  is  now 
united  with  those  who  uttered  them.  But  to  those  most  noble 
men,  Democrats  and  Republicans,  who  together  fought  for  the 
Union,  I  commend  all  the  lessons  of  charity  that  the  wisest 
and  most  beneficent  men  have  taught.  I  join  you  all  in  every 
aspiration  that  you  may  express  to  stay  in  this  Union,  to  heal 
its  wounds,  to  increase  its  glory,  and  to  forget  the  evils  and 
bitternesses  of  the  past ;  but  do  not,  for  the  sake  of  the  three 
hundred  thousand  heroic  men  who,  maimed  and  bruised,  drag 
out  their  weary  lives,  many  of  them  carrying  in  their  hearts 
horrible  memories  of  what  they  suffered  in  the  prison-pen,  — 
do  not  ask  us  to  restore  the  right  to  hold  power  to  that  man 
who  was  the  cause  of  their  suffering,  —  that  man  still  unshriven, 
unforgiven,  undefended. 


THE    CURRENCY    CONFLICT. 

PAPER    CONTRIBUTED    TO    THE    ATLANTIC    MONTHLY, 
FEBRUARY,  1876. 


IN  the  autumn  of  1862  I  spent  several  weeks  with  Secre 
tary  Chase,  and  was  permitted  to  share  his  studies  of  the 
financial  questions  which  were  then  engrossing  his  attention. 
He  was  preparing  to  submit  to  Congress  his  matured  plans 
for  a  system  of  banking  and  currency  to  meet  the  necessities  of 
the  war,  and  this  subject  formed  the  chief  theme  of  his  con 
versation.  He  was  specially  anxious  to  work  out  in  his  own 
mind  the  probable  relations  of  greenbacks  to  gold,  to  the  five- 
twenty  bonds,  to  the  proposed  national  bank  notes,  and  to  the 
business  of  the  country.  One  evening  the  conversation  turned 
on  some  question  relating  to  the  laws  of  motion,  and  Mr.  Chase 
asked  for  a  definition  of  motion.  Some  one  answered,  "  Matter 
is  inert;  spirit  alone  can  move;  therefore  motion  is  the  spirit 
of  God  made  manifest  in  matter."  The  Secretary  said,  "  If 
that  is  a  good  definition,  then  legal-tender  notes  must  be  the 
Devil  made  manifest  in  paper ;  for  no  man  can  foresee  what  mis 
chief  they  may  do  when  they  are  once  let  loose."  He  gravely 
doubted  whether  that  war-born  spirit,  summoned  to  serve  us 
in  a  dreadful  emergency,  would  be  mustered  out  of  service  with 
honor  when  the  conflict  should  end,  or,  at  the  return  of  peace, 
would  capture  public  opinion  and  enslave  the  nation  it  had 
served.  To  what  extent  his  fears  were  well  founded  may  be 
ascertained  by  comparing  the  present  state  of  the  public  mind 
in  regard  to  the  principles  of  monetary  science  with  that  which 
prevailed  when  our  existing  financial  machinery  was  set  up. 

More  than  a  million  votes  will  be  cast  at  the  next  Presiden 
tial  election  by  men  who  were  schoolboys  in  their  primers 
when  the  great  financial  measures  of  1862  were  adopted;  and 


THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT.  247 

they  do  not  realize  how  fast  or  how  far  the  public  mind  has 
drifted.  The  log-book  of  this  extraordinary  voyage  cannot  be 
read  too  often.  Let  it  be  constantly  borne  in  mind  that  four 
teen  years  ago  the  American  people  considered  themselves  well 
instructed  in  the  leading  doctrines  of  monetary  science.  They 
had  enjoyed,  or  rather  suffered,  an  extraordinary  experience. 
There  was  hardly  an  experiment  in  banking  and  currency  that 
they  or  their  fathers  had  not  fully  tested. 

In  the  first  place,  I  shall  examine  the  currency  doctrines  of 
1862. 

The  statesmen  of  that  period,  the  leaders  of  public  thought, 
and  the  people  of  all  political  parties,  were  substantially  unani 
mous  in  the  opinion  that  the  only  safe  instrument  of  exchange 
known  among  men  was  standard  coin,  or  paper  convertible  into 
coin  at  the  will  of  the  holder.  I  will  not  affirm  that  this  opinion 
was  absolutely  unanimous ;  for  doubtless  there  was  here  and 
there  a  dreamer  who  looked  upon  paper  money  as  a  sort  of 
fetich,  and  was  ready  to  crown  it  as  a  god.  There  are  always 
a  few  who  believe  in  the  quadrature  of  the  circle  and  per 
petual  motion.  I  recently  met  a  cultivated  American  who  is  a 
firm  believer  in  Buddha,  and  rejoices  in  the  hope  of  attaining 
Nirvana  beyond  the  grave.  The  gods  of  Greece  were  dis 
crowned  and  disowned  by  the  civilized  world  a  thousand  years 
ago ;  yet  within  the  last  generation  an  eminent  English  scholar 
attested  his  love  for  classical  learning  and  his  devotion  to  the 
Greek  mythology  by  actually  sacrificing  a  bull  to  Jupiter,  in 
the  back  parlor  of  his  house  in  London.  So,  in  1862,  there 
may  have  been  followers  of  William  Lowndes  and  John  Law 
among  our  people,  and  here  and  there  a  philosopher  who 
dreamed  of  an  ideal  standard  of  value  stripped  of  all  the  gross- 
ness  of  so  coarse  and  vulgar  a  substance  as  gold.  But  they 
dwelt  apart  in  silence,  and  their  opinions  made  scarce  a  ripple 
on  the  current  of  public  thought. 

No  one  can  read  the  history  of  that  year  without  observing 
the  great  reluctance,  the  apprehension,  the  positive  dread,  with 
which  the  statesmen  and  people  of  that  day  ventured  upon  the 
experiment  of  making  treasury  notes  a  legal  tender  for  private 
debts.  They  did  it  under  the  pressure  of  an  overmastering 
necessity,  to  meet  the  immediate  demands  of  the  war,  and  with 
a  most  determined  purpose  to  return  to  the  old  standard  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment.  Indeed,  the  very  act  that  made  the 


248  THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 

greenbacks  a  legal  tender  provided  the  effective  means  for  retir 
ing  them.  Distressing  as  was  the  crisis,  urgent  as  was  the  need, 
a  large  number  of  the  best  and  most  patriotic  men  in  Congress 
voted  against  the  act.  The  ground  of  their  opposition  was  well 
expressed  by  Owen  Lovejoy,  of  Illinois,  who,  after  acknowl 
edging  the  unparalleled  difficulties  and  dangers  of  the  situation, 
said,  "  There  is  no  precipice,  there  is  no  chasm,  there  is  no  pos 
sible  yawning  bottomless  gulf  before  this  nation,  so  terrible,  so 
appalling,  so  ruinous,  as  this  same  bill  that  is  before  us."  1 

Of  those  who  supported  the  measure,  not  one  defended  it  as 
a  permanent  policy.  All  declared  that  they  did  not  abate  a  jot 
of  their  faith  in  the  soundness  of  the  old  doctrines.  Thaddeus 
Stevens  said  :  "  This  bill  is  a  measure  of  necessity,  not  of  choice. 
No  one  would  willingly  issue  paper  currency  not  redeemable  on 
demand,  and  make  it  a  legal  tender.  It  is  never  desirable  to 
depart  from  that  circulating  medium  which,  by  the  common 
consent  of  civilized  nations,  forms  the  standard  of  value."  2 

In  the  Senate  the  legal-tender  clause  was  adopted  by  only 
five  majority.  The  Senators  who  supported  it  were  keenly  alive 
to  its  dangerous  character.  Mr.  Fessenden,  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Finance,  said,  "  The  bill  proposes  something 
utterly  unknown  in  this  government  from  its  foundation :  a  re 
sort  to  a  measure  of  doubtful  constitutionality,  to  say  the  least 
of  it,  which  has  always  been  denounced  as  ruinous  to  the  credit 
of  any  government  which  has  recourse  to  it;  ....  a  measure 
which,  when  it  has  been  tried  by  other  countries,  as  it  often  has 
been,  has  always  proved  a  disastrous  failure."  With  extreme 
reluctance  he  supported  the  bill,  but  said  the  committee  was 
bound  "  that  an  assurance  should  be  given  to  the  country  that 
it  was  not  to  be  resorted  to  as  a  policy ;  that  it  was  what  it  pro 
fesses  to  be,  but  a  temporary  measure I  have  not  heard 

anybody  express  a  contrary  opinion,  or,  at  least,  any  man  who 

has  spoken  on  the  subject  in  Congress All  the  gentlemen 

pretty  much  who  have  written  on  the  subject,  except  some  wild 
speculators  in  currency,  have  declared  that  as  a  policy  it  would 
be  ruinous  to  any  people ;  and  it  has  been  defended,  as  I  have 
stated,  simply  and  solely  upon  the  ground  that  it  is  to  be  a  single 
measure  standing  by  itself,  and  not  to  be  repeated.  ....  It  is  put 
upon  the  ground  of  absolute,  overwhelming  necessity"  3 

1  Congressional  Globe,  February  6,  1862,  p.  691.  2  Ibid.,  p.  687. 

3  Ibid.,  February  12,  1862,  pp.  763,  764. 


THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 


249 


Mr.  Sumner,  who  supported  the  bill,  said:  "  Surely  we  must 
all  be  against  paper  money,  —  we  must  insist  upon  maintaining 
the  integrity  of  the  government,  —  and  we  must  all  set  our  faces 
against  any  proposition  like  the  present,  except  as  a  temporary 
expedient,  rendered  imperative  by  the  exigency  of  the  hour. 
....  A  remedy  which  at  another  moment  you  would  reject  is 
now  proposed.  Whatever  may  be  the  national  resources,  they 
are  not  now  within  reach  except  by  summary  process.  Reluct 
antly,  painfully,  I  consent  that  the  process  should  issue.  And 
yet  I  cannot  give  such  a  vote  without  warning  the  government 
against  the  dangers  from  such  an  experiment.  The  medicine  of 
the  Constitution  must  not  become  its  daily  bread."  l 

Such  was  the  unanimous  sentiment  which  animated  Congress 
in  making  its  solemn  pledge  to  return  to  the  old  path  as  soon 
as  the  immediate  danger  should  pass. 

The  close  of  the  war  revealed  some  change  of  opinion,  but 
the  purpose  of  1862  was  still  maintained.  December  18,  1865, 
the  House  of  Representatives  resolved,  "  That  this  House  cor 
dially  concurs  in  the  views  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in 
relation  to  the  necessity  of  a  contraction  of  the  currency,  with  a 
view  to  as  early  a  resumption  of  specie  payments  as  the  busi 
ness  interest  of  the  country  will  permit;  and  we  hereby  pledge 
co-operative  action  to  this  end  as  speedily  as  practicable." 
This  resolution  was  adopted,  on  a  call  of  the  ayes  and  noes,  by 
the  decisive  vote  of  one  hundred  and  forty-four  to  six. 

The  last  ten  years  have  witnessed  such  a  change  of  sentiment 
as  seldom  occurs  in  one  generation.  During  that  time  we  have 
had  a  Babel  of  conflicting  theories.  Every  exploded  financial 
dogma  of  the  last  two  hundred  years  has  been  revived  and 
advocated.  Congresses  and  political  parties  have  been  agitated 
and  convulsed  by  the  discussion  of  old  and  new  schemes  to 
escape  from  the  control  of  the  universal  laws  of  value,  and  to 
reach  prosperity  and  wealth  without  treading  the  time-worn 
path  of  honest  industry  and  solid  values.  All  this  recalls  Mr. 
Chase's  definition  of  irredeemable  paper  money. 

The  great  conflict  of  opinion  resulting  from  this  change  of 
sentiment  finds  expression  in  the  cries  of  "  hard  money  "  and 
"  soft  money,"  which  have  been  so  constantly  echoed  from  State 
to  State  during  the  last  six  months.  Following  these  as  rally- 
ing-cries,  the  people  are  assembled  in  hostile  political  camps, 
1  Congressional  Globe,  February  13,  1862,  pp.  799,  800. 


250  THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 

from  which  they  will  soon  march  out  to  fight  the  Presidential 
battle  of  1876. 

The  recently  invented  term  "  soft  money  "  does  not  convey  a 
very  precise  notion  of  the  doctrine  it  is  intended  to  describe. 
In  fact,  it  is  applied  to  the  doctrines  of  several  distinct  groups 
of  theorists,  who  differ  widely  among  themselves,  but  who  all 
agree  in  opposing  a  return  to  specie  as  the  basis  of  our  mone 
tary  system.  The  scope  of  these  opinions  will  be  seen  in  the 
declarations  which  recent  public  discussions  have  brought  forth. 

(i.)  Most  of  the  advocates  of  soft  money  deny  that  political 
economy  is  a  universal  science.  They  insist  that  each  nation 
should  have  a  political  economy  of  its  own.  In  pursuance  of 
this  opinion,  they  affirm  that  our  country  should  have  a  stan 
dard  of  value  peculiar  to  itself,  and  a  circulating  medium  which 
other  nations  will  not  use ;  in  short,  a  non-exportable  currency. 
The  following  quotations  will  serve  as  examples. 

W.  D.  Kelley:  — "Beyond  the  sea,  in  foreign  lands,  it  [our 
greenback  currency]  fortunately  is  not  money ;  but,  sir,  when 
have  we  had  such  an  unbroken  career  of  prosperity  in  business 
as  since  we  adopted  this  non-exportable  currency?  " 

Henry  C.  Baird's  motto :  —  "  Money  should  be  a  thing  of  or 
belonging  to  a  country,  not  of  the  world.  An  exportable  com 
modity  is  not  fitted  to  be  money." 

B.  F.  Butler :  —  "I  desire  the  dollar  to  be  made  of  such  mate 
rial  that  it  shall  never  be  exported  or  desirable  to  carry  it  out  of 
the  country."  1 

The  venerable  Henry  C.  Carey,  under  date  of  August  15, 
1875,  addressed  a  long  letter  to  the  chairman  of  the  Detroit 
Greenback  Convention,  in  which  he  argues  that  this  country 
ought  to  "  maintain  permanently  a  non-exportable  circulation." 
He  says,  "  This  important  idea  was  first  promulgated  by  Mr. 
Rauget,  thirty-six  years  ago." 

I  will  quote  one  other  financial  authority,  which  shows  that 
the  honor  of  this  discovery  does  not  belong  to  Rauget,  nor  to 
the  present  century.  In  his  work  entitled,  "  Money  and  Trade 
considered,  with  a  Proposal  for  Supplying  the  Nation  with 
Money,"  published  in  1705,  John  Law  says:  "  If  a  money  is 
established  that  has  no  intrinsick  value,  and  its  extrinsick  value 
be  such  as  it  will  not  be  exported,  nor  will  not  be  less  than  the 
demand  for  it  within  the  country,  wealth  and  power  will  be 

1  Speech  at  Cooper  Institute,  New  York,  October  15,  1875. 


THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 


251 


attained,  and  will  be  less  precarious The  paper  money 

[herein]  proposed  being  always  equal  in  quantity  to  the  de 
mand,  the  people  will  be  employed,  the  country  improved,  man 
ufacture  advanced,  trade  domestic  and  foreign  carried  on,  and 
wealth  and  power  attained ;  and  not  being  liable  to  be  exported, 
the  people  will  not  be  set  idle,  etc.,  and  wealth  and  power  will 
be  less  precarious."  1  The  subsequent  experiments  of  Law  are 
fitting  commentaries. 

(2.)  They  propose  to  abandon  altogether  the  use  of  gold  and 
silver  as  standards  of  value  or  instruments  of  exchange,  and 
hold  that  the  stamp  of  the  government,  not  the  value  of  the 
material  on  which  it  is  impressed,  constitutes  money. 

B.  F.  Butler :  —  "I  want  the  dollar  stamped  on  some  con 
venient  and  cheap  material,  of  the  least  possible  intrinsic  value, 
....  and  I  desire  that  the  dollar  so  issued  shall  never  be  re 
deemed." 

Governor  Allen  of  Ohio :  —  "  A  piece  of  pig-metal  is  just  as 
much  money  as  a  piece  of  gold,  until  the  public  authority  has 

stamped  it,  and  said  that  it  shall  be  taken  for  so  much 

Suppose  then  that,  instead  of  taking  a  bar  of  silver  or  a  bar  of 
pig-metal,  the  government  of  the  United  States  takes  a  piece  of 
paper  called  a  greenback,  and  says  that  this  shall  pass  for  a  legal 
tender  in  the  receipt  and  expenditure  of  government  dues,  and 
in  all  the  transactions  of  the  people.  Suppose  this  government 
to  be  a  government  of  good  standing,  of  sound  credit,  and  re 
sponsible  for  its  paper.  This  dollar  thus  stamped,  instead  of 
a  piece  of  metal  being  stamped,  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
equivalent  to  a  silver  dollar  when  it  has  been  made  such  by 
the  government  of  the  United  States."  2 

W.  P.  Groom  :  —  "  The  use  of  gold  or  other  merchandise  as 
money  is  a  barbarism  unworthy  of  the  age." 

Britton  A.  Hill:  — "  The  pretence  of  redemption  in  gold  and 
silver  is  of  necessity  a  delusion  and  an  absurdity." 

O.  S.  Halsted :  — "The  government  can  make  money  of  any 
material,  and  of  any  shape  and  value  it  pleases." 

(3.)  They  are  not  agreed  among  themselves  as  to  what  this 
new  soft  money  shall  be.  They  do  agree,  however,  that  the 
national  banking  system  shall  be  abolished,  and  that  whatever 
currency  may  be  adopted  shall  be  issued  directly  from  the 

1  Glasgow,  1750,  pp.  191,  192. 

-  Speech  at  Gallipolis,  Ohio,  July  21,  1875. 


252  THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 

treasury  as  the  only  money  of  the  nation.      Three  forms   are 
proposed :  — 

First.  The  legal  tenders  we  now  have,  their  volume  to  be 
increased  and  their  redemption  indefinitely  postponed.  The 
advocates  of  this  form  are  the  inflationists  proper,  who  care 
more  for  the  volume  than  the  character  of  the  currency. 

Second.  "  Absolute  money  "  ;  that  is,  printed  pieces  of  pa 
per,  called  dollars,  to  be  the  only  standard  of  value,  the  only 
legal  tender  for  all  debts,  public  and  private,  the  only  circulat 
ing  medium.  The  advocates  of  this  kind  of  "  money,"  though 
few  in  numbers,  claim  the  highest  place  as  philosophers.  The 
ablest  defence  of  this  doctrine  will  be  found  in  a  brochure 
published  in  St.  Louis  during  the  present  year,  in  which  the 
author  says :  "  If  such  national  legal-tender  money  is  not  of 
itself  sovereign  and  absolute,  but  must  be  convertible  into  some 
other  substance  or  thing,  before  it  can  command  universal  cir 
culation,  what  matters  it  whether  that  other  substance  or  thing 
be  interest-bearing  bonds  or  gold  or  silver  coin?  ....  The 
coin  despotism  cannot  be  broken  by  substituting  in  its  place 
the  despotism  of  interest-bearing  bonds."  l 

Third.  A  legal-tender  note  not  redeemable,  but  exchangea 
ble,  at  the  will  of  the  holder,  for  a  bond  of  the  United  States 
bearing  3.65  per  cent  interest,  which  bond  shall  in  turn  be  ex 
changeable,  at  the  will  of  the  holder,  for  legal-tender  notes.  In 
order  that  this  currency  shall  be  wholly  emancipated  from  the 
tyranny  and  barbarism  of  gold  and  silver,  most  of  its  advocates 
insist  that  the  interest  on  the  bonds  shall  be  paid  in  the  pro 
posed  paper  money.  This  financial  perpetual  motion  is  regard 
ed  as  the  great  discovery  of  our  era,  and  there  are  numerous 
claimants  for  the  honor  of  being  the  first  to  discover  it.  Mr. 
Wallace  P.  Groom,  of  New  York,  has  characterized  this  cur 
rency  in  a  paragraph  which  has  been  so  frequently  quoted, 
that  it  may  be  fairly  called  their  creed.  It  is  in  these  words : 
"  In  the  interchangeability  (at  the  option  of  the  holder)  of  na 
tional  paper  money  with  government  bonds  bearing  a  fixed  rate 
of  interest,  there  is  a  subtle  principle  that  will  regulate  the  move 
ments  of  finance  and  commerce  as  accurately  as  the  motion  of 
the  steam-engine  is  regulated  by  its  governor.  Such  PAPER 
MONEY  TOKENS  would  be  much  nearer  perfect  measures  of 
value  than  gold  or  silver  ever  have  been  or  ever  can  be.  The 
1  Absolute  Money,  by  Britton  A.  Hill,  p.  53. 


THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT.  253 

use  of  gold  or  other  merchandise  as  money  is  a  barbarism  un 
worthy  of  the  age." 

(4.)  The  paper-money  men  are  unanimous  in  the  opinion 
that  the  financial  crisis  of  1873  was  caused  by  an  insufficient 
supply  of  currency,  and  that  a  large  increase  will  stimulate  in 
dustry,  restore  prosperity,  and  largely  augment  the  wealth  of 
this  country.  Hon.  Alexander  Campbell,  of  Illinois,  a  leading 
writer  of  the  soft-money  school,  thinks  there  should  now  be  in 
circulation  not  less  than  $1,290,000,000  of  legal-tender  notes.1 
John  G.  Drew,  another  prominent  writer,  insists  that,  "  as  Eng 
land  is  an  old  and  settled  country,  and  we  are  just  building 
ours,"  we  ought  to  have  at  least  $60  per  capita,  or  an  aggregate 
of  $2,500,000,000.2 

No  doubt,  the  very  large  vote  in  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania  in 
favor  of  soft  money  resulted,  in  great  measure,  from  the  de 
pressed  state  of  industry  and  trade,  and  a  vague  hope  that  the 
adoption  of  these  doctrines  would  bring  relief.  The  discussion 
in  both  States  was  able ;  and,  toward  the  close  of  the  campaign, 
it  was  manifest  that  sound  principles  were  every  day  gaining 
ground.  Important  as  was  the  victory  in  those  States,  it  is  a 
great  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  struggle  is  ended.  The  advo 
cates  of  soft  money  are  determined  and  aggressive,  and  they 
confidently  believe  they  will  be  able  to  triumph  in  1876. 

It  ought  to  be  observed,  as  an  interesting  fact  of  current  his 
tory,  that  the  soft-money  men  are  making  and  collecting  a  litera 
ture  which  cannot  fail  to  delight  the  antiquarian  and  the  reader 
of  curiosities  of  literature.  They  are  ransacking  old  libraries  to 
find  any 

"  Quaint  and  curious 
Volume  of  forgotten  lore  " 

which  may  give  support  to  their  opinions.  In  a  recent  pam 
phlet,  Henry  Carey  Baird  refers  to  Andrew  Yarranton  as  "  the 
father  of  English  political  economy."  The  forgotten  treatise 
which  is  now  enrolled  among  the  patristic  books  of  the  new 
school  was  published  in  London  in  1677,  and  is  entitled,  "  Eng 
land's  Improvement  by  Sea  and  Land.  To  outdo  the  Dutch 
without  Fighting,  to  pay  Debts  without  Moneys,  and  to  set  at 
work  all  the  Poor  of  England  with  the  Growth  of  our  own 
Lands."  The  author  proposes  a  public  bank,  based  on  the 

1  Northwestern  Review,  November,  1873,  P-  T52- 

2  Our  Currency:   What  it  is,  and  what  it  should  be. 


254  THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 

registered  value  of  houses  and  lands,  "  the  credit  whereof  mak 
ing  paper  go  in  trade  equal  with  ready  money,  yea  better,  in 
many  parts  of  the  world,  than  money."  He  was,  perhaps,  the 
first  Englishman  who  suggested  a  currency  based  on  land.  On 
pages  30-33  of  his  book  may  be  found  his  draft  of  a  proposed 
law,  which  provides  "  that  all  bonds  or  bills  issued  on  such  regis 
tered  houses  may  be  transferable,  and  shall  pass  and  be  good 
from  man  to  man  in  the  nature  of  bills  of  exchange.^' 

The  writings  of  John  Law  are  also  finding  vigorous  defenders. 
Britton  A.  Hill,  in  the  pamphlet  already  quoted,  devotes  a  chap 
ter  to  his  memory,  compares  him  favorably  with  Leibnitz  and 
Newton,  and  says,  "  John  Law  is  justly  regarded  as  one  of  the 
most  profound  thinkers  of  his  age,  in  that  he  originated  the  first 
fundamental  principle  of  this  proposed  absolute  money."  The 
admirers  of  "  father  "  Yarranton  should  see  to  it  that  the  outdoer 
of  the  Dutch  is  not  robbed  of  his  honors  by  the  great  Scotsman. 

English  history  is  being  hunted  through  to  find  some  comfort 
for  the  new  doctrines  in  the  writings  of  that  small  minority  who 
resisted  the  Bullion  Report  of  1810,  and  the  resumption  of  cash 
payments  in  1819,  and  continued  to  denounce  them  afterwards. 
History  must  be  rewritten.  We  must  learn  that  Mathias  ^\.tt- 
wood  (who?),  not  Lord  Liverpool,  Huskisson,  or  Peel,  was  the 
fountain  of  financial  wisdom.  Doubleday,  whom  no  English 
writer  has  thought  it  worth  while  to  answer,  is  much  quoted  by 
the  new  school,  and  they  have  lately  come  to  feel  the  profound- 
est  respect  for  Sir  Archibald  Alison,  because  of  his  extravagant 
assault  upon  the  Resumption  Act  of  1819.  Alison  holds  a  place 
in  English  literature  chiefly  because  he  wrote  a  work  which 
fills  a  gap  in  English  history  not  otherwise  filled.  In  1846  he 
wrote  a  pamphlet  entitled,  "  England  in  1815  and  1845  ;  or,  a 
Sufficient  and  a  Contracted  Currency,"  which  the  subsequent 
financial  and  commercial  events  in  his  country  have  so  fully 
refuted,  that  it  has  slept  for  a  generation  in  the  limbo  of  things 
forgotten.  It  is  now  unearthed,  and  finds  an  honored  place  in 
the  new  literature.  As  a  specimen  of  Alison's  financial  wisdom, 
I  quote  the  following:  "The  eighteen  years  of  war  from  1797 
to  1815  were,  as  all  the  world  knows,  the  most  glorious,  and, 
taken  as  a  whole,  the  most  prosperous,  that  Great  Britain  had 

ever  known Never  has  a  prosperity  so  universal  and 

unheard  of  pervaded  every  department  of  the  empire."  He 
then  enumerates  the  evidences  of  this  prosperity,  and  prominent 


* 

THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT.  255 

among  them  is  this :  "  While  the  revenue  raised  by  taxation 
was  but  £21,000,000  in  1796,  it  had  reached  £72,000,000  in 
1815  ;  the  total  expenditures  from  taxes  and  loans  had  reached 
£ 1 1 7, 000,000. "l  Happy  people,  whose  burdens  of  taxation 
were  quadrupled  in  eighteen  years,  and  whose  expenses,  con 
sumed  in  war,  exceeded  their  revenues  by  the  sum  of  $225,000,000 
in  gold ! 

The  inflationists  have  not  been  so  fortunate  in  augmenting 
their  literary  store  from  the  writings  and  speeches  of  our  early 
American  statesmen.  Still,  they  have  made  vigorous  efforts  to 
draft  into  their  service  any  isolated  paragraph  that  can  be  made 
useful  for  their  purpose.  So  far  as  I  have  seen,  they  have  found 
no  comfort  in  this  search  except  in  very  short  extracts  from 
three  of  the  great  leaders  of  public  thought. 

The  first  is  from  a  juvenile  essay  in  defence  of  paper  money, 
written  by  Benjamin  Franklin  in  1729,  when  he  was  twenty-two 
years  of  age.  This  has  been  frequently  quoted  during  the  last 
four  years.  They  are  not  so  fond  of  quoting  Franklin  the 
statesman  and  philosopher,  who  after  a  life-long  experience 
wrote,  in  1783,  these  memorable  words:  "I  lament  with  you 
the  many  mischiefs,  the  injustice,  the  corruption  of  manners, 
etc.,  that  attended  a  depreciated  currency.  It  is  some  conso 
lation  to  me  that  I  washed  my  hands  of  that  evil  by  predicting 
it  in  Congress,  and  proposing  means  that  would  have  been 
effectual  to  prevent  it  if  they  had  been  adopted.  Subsequent 
operations  that  I  have  executed  demonstrate  that  my  plan  was 
practicable;  but  it  was  unfortunately  rejected."2 

A  serious  attempt  has  been  made  to  capture  Thomas  Jeffer 
son,  and  bring  him  into  the  service.  The  following  passage 
from  one  of  his  letters  to  John  W.  Eppes  has  been  paraded 
through  this  discussion  with  all  the  emphasis  of  italics,  thus : 
"  Bank  paper  must  be  suppressed,  and  the  circulating  medium 
must  be  restored  to  the  nation,  to  whom  it  belongs.  It  is  the  only 
fund  on  which  they  can  rely  for  loans ;  it  is  the  only  resource 
which  can  never  fail  them,  and  it  is  an  abundant  one  for  every 
necessary  purpose.  Treasury  bills  bottomed  on  taxes,  bearing  or 
not  bearing  interest,  as  may  be  found  necessary,  thrown  into  cir 
culation,  will  take  the  place  of  so  much  gold  and  silver,  which 
last,  when  crowded,  will  find  an  efflux  into  other  countries,  and 
thus  keep  the  quantum  of  medium  at  its  salutary  level."  3 

1  Pages  2,  3.  "-  Works,  Vol.  X.  p.  9.  a  Works,  Vol.  VI.  p.  199. 


256  THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 

This  passage  was  quoted  as  a  strong  point  for  the  soft-money 
men  in  their  campaign  documents  in  Ohio,  last  fall.  They  did 
not  find  it  convenient  to  quote  the  great  Virginian  more  fully. 
When  this  letter  was  written,  the  United  States  was  at  war  with 
England,  with  no  friendly  nation  from  whom  to  obtain  loans. 
The  demand  for  revenue  was  urgent,  and  the  treasury  was 
empty.  Mr.  Jefferson  had  long  been  opposed  to  the  State 
banks,  and  he  saw  that  by  suppressing  them  and  issuing  treas 
ury  notes,  with  or  without  interest,  the  government  could  ac 
complish  two  things :  destroy  State  bank  currency,  and  obtain 
a  forced  loan,  in  the  form  of  circulating  notes.  In  enforcing 
this  view,  he  wrote  from  Monticello  to  Mr.  Eppes,  June  24, 
1813:  — 

"  I  am  sorry  to  see  our  loans  begin  at  so  exorbitant  an  interest.  And 
yet,  even  at  that,  you  will  soon  be  at  the  bottom  of  the  loan-bag.  We 

are  an  agricultural  nation In  such  a  nation  there  is  one  and  one 

only  resource  for  loans,  sufficient  to  carry  them  through  the  expense  of  a 
war ;  and  that  will  always  be  sufficient,  and  in  the  power  of  an  honest 
government,  punctual  in  the  preservation  of  its  faith.  The  fund  I  mean 
is  the  mass  of  circulating  coin.  Every  one  knows  that,  although  not  lit 
erally,  it  is  nearly  true  that  every  paper  dollar  emitted  banishes  a  silver 
one  from  the  circulation.  A  nation,  therefore,  making  its  purchases  and 
payments  with  bills  fitted  for  circulation,  thrusts  an  equal  sum  of  coin 
out  of  circulation.  This  is  equivalent  to  borrowing  that  sum ;  and  yet 
the  vendor,  receiving  payment  in  a  medium  as  effectual  as  coin  for  his 

purchases  or  payments,  has  no  claim  to  interest In  this  way  I  am 

not  without  a  hope  that  this  great,  this  sole  resource  for  loans  in  an 
agricultural  country  might  yet  be  recovered  for  the  use  of  the  nation 
during  war ;  and,  if  obtained  in  perpetuum,  it  would  always  be  sufficient 
to  carry  us  through  any  war,  provided  that  in  the  interval  between  war 
and  war  all  the  outstanding  paper  should  be  called  in,  coin  be  permitted 
to  flow  in  again,  and  to  hold  the  field  of  circulation  until  another  war 
should  require  its  yielding  place  again  to  the  national  medium."  1 

From  this  it  appears  that  Jefferson  favored  the  issue  of  treas 
ury  notes  to  help  us  through  a  war ;  but  he  insisted  that  they 
should  be  .wholly  retired  on  the  return  of  peace.  His  three 
long  letters  to  Eppes  are  full  of  powerful  and  eloquent  denun 
ciations  of  paper  money.  The  soft-money  men  appeal  to  Jef 
ferson.  We  answer  them  in  his  own  words :  "  The  truth  is, 
that  capital  may  be  produced  by  industry,  and  accumulated 

1  Works,  Vol.  VI.  pp.  139,  141. 


THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT.  257 

by  economy;  but  jugglers  only  will  propose  to  create  it  by 
legerdemain  tricks  with  paper."  1 

Their  third  attempt  to  elect  some  eminent  statesman  as  an 
honorary  member  of  the  new  school  affords  a  striking  illustra 
tion  of  a  method  too  often  adopted  in  our  politics.  It  was  very 
confidently  stated  by  several  advocates  of  soft  money  that  John 
C.  Calhoun  had  suggested  that  a  paper  money,  issued  directly 
by  the  government  and  made  receivable  for  all  public  dues, 
would  be  as  good  a  currency  as  gold  and  silver.  Mr.  Hill 
finally  claimed  Calhoun's  authority  in  support  of  his  absolute 
money,  and  printed  a  passage  from  a  speech  of  Calhoun's.2 
This  extract  was  used  in  the  Ohio  campaign  of  1875  with  much 
effect,  until  it  was  shown  that  there  had  been  omitted  from  the 
passage  quoted  these  important  words :  "  leaving  its  creditors 
to  take  it  [treasury-note  circulation]  or  gold  and  silver  at  their 
option''  After  this  exposure,  the  great  Nullifier  was  left  out  of 
the  canvass. 

Thus  far  I  have  attempted  no  more  than  to  exhibit  the  state 
of  public  opinion  in  regard  to  the  currency  in  1861-62,  the 
changes  that  have  since  occurred,  and  the  leading  doctrines 
now  held  by  the  soft-money  men.  Most  of  these  dogmas  are 
old,  and  have  long  ago  been  exploded.  All  are  directly  op 
posed  to  principles  as  well  established  as  the  theorems  of 
Euclid.  Believing  that  this  generation  of  Americans  is  not 
willing  to  ignore  all  past  experience,  and  to  decide  so  great  an 
issue  as  though  it  were  now  raised  for  the  first  time,  I  shall 
attempt  to  state,  in  brief  compass,  the  grounds  on  which  the 
doctrine  of  hard  money  rests. 

Hard  money  is  not  to  be  understood  as  implying  a  currency 
consisting  of  coin  alone,  (though  many  have  held,  with  Benton, 
that  no  other  is  safe,)  but  that  coin  of  ascertained  weight  and 
fineness,  duly  stamped  and  authenticated  by  the  government,  is 
the  only  safe  standard  of  money ;  and  that  no  form  of  credit 
currency  is  safe  unless  it  be  convertible  into  coin  at  the  will  of 
the  holder. 

As  preliminary  to  this  discussion,  it  is  necessary  to  determine 
the  functions  which  money  performs  as  an  instrument  of  ex 
change.  As  barter  was  the  oldest  form  of  exchange,  so  it  was 
and  still  is  the  ultimate  object  and  result  of  all  exchanges.  For 
example :  I  wish  to  exchange  my  commodities  or  services  for 

1  Works,  Vol.  VI.  p.  241.  2  See  pp.  56,  57  of  his  pamphlet. 

VOL.  ii.  17 


258  THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 

commodities  or  services  of  a  different  kind.  I  find  no  one  at 
hand  who  has  what  I  want,  and  wants  what  I  have.  I  therefore 
exchange,  or,  as  we  say,  sell,  my  commodities  for  money, 
which  I  hold  until  I  find  some  one  who  wishes  to  sell  what  I 
want  to  buy.  I  then  make  the  purchase.  The  two  transactions 
have,  in  fact,  resulted  in  a  barter.  It  amounts  to  the  same 
thing  as  though,  at  the  start,  I  had  found  a  man  who  wanted 
my  commodities,  and  was  willing  to  give  me  in  exchange  the 
commodities  I  desired.  By  a  sale  and  a  purchase  I  have  ac 
complished  my  object.  Money  was  the  instrument  by  which 
the  transactions  were  made.  The  great  French  economist, 
J.  B.  Say,  has  justly  described  a  sale  as  half  a  barter,  for  we  see, 
in  the  case  above  stated,  that  two  sales  were  equivalent,  in  effect, 
to  one  act  of  simple  barter.  But  some  time  may  elapse  between 
my  sale  and  the  subsequent  purchase.  How  are  my  rights  of 
property  secured  during  the  interval?  That  which  I  sold  carried 
its  value  in  itself  as  an  exchangeable  commodity ;  when  I  had 
exchanged  it  for  money,  and  was  waiting  to  make  my  purchase, 
the  security  for  my  property  rested  wholly  in  the  money  result 
ing  from  the  sale.  If  that  money  be  a  perfect  instrument  of 
exchange,  it  must  not  only  be  the  lawful  measure  of  that  which 
I  sold,  but  it  must,  of  itself,  be  the  actual  equivalent  in  value. 
If  its  value  depends  upon  the  arbitrary  acts  of  government  or 
of  individuals,  the  results  of  my  transaction  depend  not  upon 
the  value  of  that  which  I  sold  nor  of  that  which  I  bought,  nor 
upon  my  prudence  and  skill,  but  upon  an  element  wholly  be 
yond  my  control,  —  a  medium  of  exchange  which  varies  in 
value  from  day  to  day. 

Such  being  the  nature  of  exchanges,  we  should  expect  to  find 
that,  so  soon  as  man  begins  to  emerge  from  the  most  primitive 
condition  of  society  and  the  narrowest  circle  of  family  life,  he 
will  seek  a  measure  and  an  instrument  of  exchange  among  his 
first  necessities.  And  in  fact  it  is  a  matter  of  history  that,  in  the 
hunting  state,  skins  were  used  as  money,  because  they  were  the 
product  of  chief  value.  In  the  pastoral  state,  —  the  next  advance 
in  civilization,  —  sheep  and  cattle,  being  the  most  valuable  and 
negotiable  form  of  property,  were  used  as  money.  This  ap 
pears  in  the  earliest  literature.  In  the  Homeric  poems  oxen 
are  repeatedly  mentioned  as  the  standard  by  which  wealth  was 
measured.  The  arms  of  Diomed  are  declared  to  be  worth  nine 
oxen,  and  those  of  Glaucus  to  be  worth  one  hundred.  In  the 


THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT.  259 

twenty-third  book  of  the  Iliad,  a  tripod,  the  first  prize  for 
wrestlers,  is  valued  at  twelve  oxen,  and  a  woman  captive  skilled 
in  industry  at  four.1  In  many  languages  the  name  for  money 
is  identical  with  that  for  some  kind  of  cattle.  Even  our  word 
"fee"  is  said  to  be  the  Anglo-Saxon  "  feoh,"  meaning  both 
money  and  cattle.  Sir  H.  S.  Maine,  speaking  of  the  primitive 
state  of  society,  says  that  kine,  being  counted  by  the  head, 
were  called  capitale,  whence  the  economic  term  capital,  the  law 
term  chattel,  and  our  common  name  cattle?  In  the  agricultural 
and  manufacturing  stage  of  civilization,  many  forms  of  vege 
table  and  manufactured  products  were  used  as  money,  such  as 
corn,  wheat,  tobacco,  cacao  nuts,  cubes  of  tea,  colored  feathers, 
shells,  nails,  etc. 

All  these  species  of  wealth  were  made  instruments  of  ex 
change,  because  they  were  easily  transferable,  and  their  value 
was  the  best  known  and  least  fluctuating.  But  the  use  of  each 
as  money  was  not  universal;  in  fact,  was  but  little  known 
beyond  the  bounds  of  a  single  nation.  Most  of  them  were  non- 
exportable  ;  and  though  that  fact  would  have  commended  them 
to  the  favor  of  some  of  our  modern  economists,  yet  the  mass  of 
mankind  have  entertained  a  different  opinion,  and  have  sought 
to  find  a  medium  whose  value  and  fitness  to  be  used  as  money 
would  be  universally  acknowledged. 

It  is  not  possible  to  ascertain  when  and  by  whom  the  pre 
cious  metals  were  first  adopted  as  money ;  but  for  more  than 
three  thousand  years  they  have  been  acknowledged  as  the  forms 
of  material  wealth  best  fitted  to  be  the  measure  and  instrument 
of  exchange.  Each  nation  and  tribe,  as  it  has  emerged  from 
barbarism,  has  abandoned  its  local,  non-exportable  medium, 
and  adopted  what  is  justly  called  "  the  money  of  the  world." 
Coinage  was  a  later  device,  employed  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
fashioning  into  a  convenient  shape  the  metal  to  be  used  as 
money,  and  of  ascertaining  and  certifying  officially  the  weight 
and  fineness  of  each  piece.  And  here  has  arisen  the  chief  error 
in  reference  to  the  nature  of  money.  Because  the  government 
coins  it,  names  its  denominations,  and  declares  its  value,  many 
have  been  led  to  imagine  that  the  government  creates  it,  —  that 
its  value  is  a  gift  of  the  law. 

The  analogy  of  other  standards  will  aid  us  at  this  point.  Our 
Constitution  empowers  Congress  to  fix  the  standard  of  weights 

1  Jevons's  Money  and  the  Mechanism  of  Exchange,  p.  21.  2  Ibid.,  p.  23. 


260  THE    CURRENCY   CONFLICT. 

and  measures,  as  well  as  of  values.  But  Congress  cannot  cre 
ate  extension,  or  weight,  or  value.  It  can  measure  that  which 
has  extension,  it  can  weigh  that  which  is  ponderable,  it  can 
declare,  and  subdivide,  and  name  a  standard;  but  it  cannot 
make  length  of  that  which  has  no  length,  it  cannot  make  weight 
of  that  which  is  imponderable,  it  cannot  make  value  of  that 
which  has  no  value.  Ex  nihilo  nihil  fit.  The  power  of  Con 
gress  to  make  anything  it  pleases  receivable  for  taxes  is  a 
matter  wholly  distinct  from  the  subject  now  under  discussion. 
Legislation  cannot  make  that  a  measure  of  value  which  neither 
possesses  nor  represents  any  definitely  ascertained  value. 

Now  apply  to  the  operations  of  exchange  a  given  coin,  whose 
weight  and  fineness  are  certified  by  public  authority.  We  can 
not  do  this  better  than  by  borrowing  the  language  of  Frederic 
Bastiat,  found  in  his  Maudit  Argent :  — 

"  You  have  a  crown.  What  does  it  signify  in  your  hands?  It  is  the 
testimony  and  the  proof  that  you  have  at  some  time  performed  a  work ; 
and,  instead  of  profiting  by  it  yourself,  you  have  allowed  the  community 
to  enjoy  it  in  the  person  of  your  client.  This  crown  is  the  evidence  that 
you  have  rendered  a  service  to  society ;  and  it  states  the  value  of  that 
service.  Moreover,  it  is  the  evidence  that  you  have  not  drawn  from  the 
community  the  real  equivalent,  as  was  your  right.  In  order  to  enable 
you  to  exercise  that  right  when  and  as  you  please,  society,  by  the  hand 
of  your  client,  has  given  you  a  recognition,  a  title,  a  bond  of  the  common 
wealth,  a  token,  in  short  a  crown,  which  differs  from  other  fiduciary 
titles  only  in  this,  that  it  carries  its  value  in  itself;  and  if  you  can  read 
with  the  eyes  of  the  mind  the  inscription  which  it  bears,  you  will  dis 
tinctly  decipher  these  words  :  '  Render  to  the  bearer  a  service  equivalent 
to  that  which  he  has  rendered  to  society  ;  a  value  received,  stated,  proved, 
and  measured  by  that  which  is  in  ?ne.'  ....  If  you  now  give  that  crown 
to  me  as  the  price  of  a  service,  this  is  the  result :  your  account  with  so 
ciety  for  real  services  is  found  regular,  is  balanced  and  closed,  .... 
and  I  am  justly  in  the  position  where  you  were  before."  * 

Edmund  Burke  expressed  the  same  opinion  when  he  said, 
"  Gold  and  silver  are  the  two  great,  recognized  species  that  rep 
resent  the  lasting  conventional  credit  of  mankind." 

Three  thousand  years  of  experience  have  proved  that  the 
precious  metals  are  the  best  materials  of  which  to  make  the 
standard  of  value,  the  instrument  of  exchange.  They  are  them 
selves  a  store  of  value ;  they  are  durable,  divisible,  easily  trans- 

1  GEuvres  Completes,  etc.,  (Paris,  1854,)  Vol.  V.  pp.  80,  Si. 


THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT.  261 

ported,  and  more  constant  in  value  than  any  other  known 
substances.  In  the  form  of  dust  and  bars,  as  merchandise, 
their  value  is  precisely  equal  to  their  declared  value  as  money, 
less  the  very  small  cost  of  coinage.  Coin  made  of  these  metals 
measures  wealth,  because  it  represents  wealth  in  itself,  just  as 
the  yardstick  measures  length,  and  the  standard  pound  meas 
ures  weight,  because  each  has  in  itself  that  which  it  measures. 

Again,  the  precious  metals  are  products  of  labor,  and  their 
value,  like  that  of  all  other  merchandise,  depends  upon  the  cost 
of  production.  A  coin  represents  and  measures  the  labor  re 
quired  to  produce  it ;  it  may  be  called  an  embodiment  of  labor. 
Of  course,  this  statement  refers  to  the  average  cost  of  produc 
tion  throughout  the  world,  and  that  average  has  varied  but  little 
for  many  centuries.  It  is  a  flat  absurdity  to  assert  that  such  a 
reality  as  labor  can  be  measured  and  really  represented  by  that 
which  costs  little  or  no  labor.  For  these  reasons  the  precious 
metals  have  been  adopted  by  the  common  law  of  the  world  as 
the  best  materials  in  which  to  embody  the  unit  of  money. 

The  oldest  and  perhaps  the  most  dangerous  delusion,  in  ref 
erence  to  money,  is  the  notion  that  it  is  a  creation  of  law ;  that 
its  value  can  be  fixed  and  maintained  by  authority.  Yet  no 
error  has  been  more  frequently  refuted  by  experience.  Every 
debasement  of  the  coin,  and  every  attempt  to  force  its  circula 
tion  at  a  higher  rate  than  the  market  value  of  the  metal  it  con 
tains,  has  been  punished  by  the  inevitable  disasters  that  always 
follow  the  violation  of  economic  laws.  The  great  Parliamentary 
debate  of  1695,  on  the  recoinage  of  English  money,  affords  an 
absolute  demonstration  of  the  truth,  that  legislatures  cannot  re 
peal  the  laws  of  value.  Mr.  Lowndes,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury,  though  he  held  that  a  debasement  of  the  coinage  should 
be  rejected  as  "  dangerous  and  dishonorable,"  really  believed, 
as  did  a  large  number  of  members  of  Parliament,  that,  if  by 
law  they  raised  the  name  of  the  coin,  they  would  raise  its  value 
as  money.  As  Macaulay  puts  it,  — 

"  Lowndes  was  not  in  the  least  aware  that  a  piece  of  metal  with  the 
king's  head  on  it  was  a  commodity  of  which  the  price  was  governed  by 
the  same  laws  which  govern  the  price  of  a  piece  of  metal  fashioned  into 
a  spoon  or  a  buckle  ;  and  that  it  was  no  more  in  the  power  of  Parlia 
ment  to  make  the  kingdom  richer  by  calling  a  crown  a  pound,  than  to 
make  the  kingdom  larger  by  calling  a  furlong  a  mile.  He  seriously  be 
lieved,  incredible  as  it  may  seem,  that  if  the  ounce  of  silver  were  divided 


262  THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 

into  seven  shillings  instead  of  five,  foreign  nations  would  sell  us  their 
wines  and  their  silks  for  a  smaller  number  of  ounces.  He  had  a  con 
siderable  following,  composed  partly  of  dull  men  who  really  believed 
what  he  told  them,  and  partly  of  shrewd  men  who  were  perfectly  willing 
to  be  authorized  by  law  to  pay  a  hundred  pounds  with  eighty."  1 

It  was  this  debate  that  called  forth  those  masterly  essays  of 
John  Locke  on  the  nature  of  money  and  coin,  which  still  re 
main  as  a  monument  to  his  genius,  and  an  unanswerable  dem 
onstration  that  money  obeys  the  laws  of  value,  and  is  not  the 
creature  of  arbitrary  edicts.  At  the  same  time,  Sir  Isaac  New 
ton  was  called  from  those  sublime  discoveries  in  science  which 
made  his  name  immortal,  to  aid  the  King  and  Parliament  in 
ascertaining  the  true  basis  of  money.  After  the  most  thorough 
examination,  this  great  thinker  reached  the  same  conclusions. 
The  genius  of  these  two  men,  aided  by  the  enlightened  states 
manship  of  Montague  and  Somers,  gave  the  victory  to  honest 
money,  and  preserved  the  commercial  honor  of  England  for  a 
century.2 

In  discussing  the  use  of  paper  as  a  representative  of  actual 
money,  we  enter  a  new  field  of  political  science,  namely,  the 
general  theory  of  credit.  We  shall  go  astray  at  once  if  we  fail 
to  perceive  the  character  of  this  element.  Credit  is  not  capital. 
It  is  the  permission  given  to  one  man  to  use  the  capital  of 
another.  It  is  not  an  increase  of  capital ;  for  the  same  property 
cannot  be  used  as  capital  by  both  the  owner  and  the  borrower 
of  it,  at  the  same  time.  But  credit,  if  not  abused,  is  a  great 
and  beneficent  power.  By  its  use  the  productiveness  of  capital 
is  greatly  increased.  A  large  amount  of  capital  is  owned  by 
people  who  do  not  desire  to  employ  it  in  the  actual  production 
of  wealth.  There  are  many  others  who  are  ready  and  willing 
to  engage  in  productive  enterprise,  but  have  not  the  necessary 
capital.  Now,  if  the  owners  of  unemployed  capital  have  con 
fidence  in  the  honesty  and  skill  of  the  latter  class,  they  lend 
their  capital  at  a  fair  rate  of  interest,  and  thus  the  production 
of  wealth  is  greatly  increased.  Frequently,  however,  the  capi 
tal  loaned  is  not  actually  transferred  to  the  borrower,  but  a 
written  evidence  of  his  title  to  it  is  given  instead.  If  this  title  is 
transferable,  it  may  be  used  as  a  substitute  for  money ;  for,  within 
certain  limits,  it  has  the  same  purchasing  power.  When  these 

1  History  of  England,  Vol.  IV.  p.  503. 

2  See  Macaulay's  History,  Vol.  IV.  pp.  493-512. 


THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT.  263 

evidences  of  credit  are  in  the  form  of  checks  and  drafts,  bills  of 
exchange  and  promissory  notes,  they  are  largely  used  as  substi 
tutes  for  money,  and  very  greatly  facilitate  exchanges.  But  all 
are  based  upon  confidence,  upon  the  belief  that  they  represent 
truly  what  they  profess  to  represent,  —  actual  capital,  measured 
by  real  money,  to  be  delivered  on  demand. 

These  evidences  of  credit  have  become,  in  modern  times,  the 
chief  instruments  of  exchange.  The  bank  has  become  as  indis 
pensable  to  the  exchange  of  values  as  the  railroad  is  to  the 
transportation  of  merchandise.  It  is  the  institution  of  credit 
by  means  of  which  these  various  substitutes  for  money  are 
made  available.  It  has  been  shown  that  not  less  than  ninety 
per  cent  of  all  the  exchanges  in  the  United  States  are  accom 
plished  by  means  of  bank  credits.  The  per  cent  in  England  is 
not  less  than  ninety-five.  Money  is  now  the  small  change  of 
commerce.  It  is  perhaps  owing  to  this  fact,  that  many  are  so 
dazzled  by  the  brilliant  achievements  of  credit  as  to  forget  that 
it  is  the  shadow  of  capital,  not  its  substance ;  that  it  is  the  sign, 
the  brilliant  sign,  but  not  the  thing  signified.  Let  it  be  con 
stantly  borne  in  mind  that  the  check,  the  draft,  the  bill  of  ex 
change,  the  promissory  note,  are  all  evidences  of  debt,  of  money 
to  be  paid.  If  not,  they  are  fictitious  and  fraudulent.  If  the 
real  capital  on  which  they  are  based  be  destroyed,  they  fall  with 
it,  and  become  utterly  worthless.  If  confidence  in  their  prompt 
payment  be  impaired,  they  immediately  depreciate  in  propor 
tion  to  the  distrust. 

We  have  mentioned  among  these  instruments  of  credit  the 
promissory  note.  Its  character  as  an  evidence  of  debt  is  not 
changed  when  it  comes  to  us  illuminated  by  the  art  and  mys 
tery  of  plate-printing.  Name  it  national  bank  note,  greenback, 
Bank  of  England  note,  or  what  you  will,  —  let  it  be  signed  by 
banker,  president,  or  king,  —  it  is  none  the  less  an  evidence  of 
debt,  a  promise  to  pay.  It  is  not  money,  and  no  power  on 
earth  can  make  it  money.  But  it  is  a  title  to  money,  a  deed  for 
money,  and  can  be  made  equal  to  money  only  when  the  debtor 
performs  the  promise,  delivers  the  property  which  the  deed 
calls  for,  pays  the  debt.  When  that  is  done,  and  when  the 
community  knows,  by  actual  test,  that  it  will  continue  to  be 
done,  then,  and  not  till  then,  this  credit  currency  will  in  fact  be 
the  honest  equivalent  of  money.  Then  it  will,  in  large  measure, 
be  used  in  preference  to  coin,  because  of  its  greater  conve- 


264  THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 

nience,  and  because  the  cost  of  issuing  new  notes  in  place  of 
those  which  are  worn  and  mutilated  is  much  less  than  the  loss 
which  the  community  suffers  by  abrasion  of  the  coin.  To  the 
extent,  therefore,  that  paper  will  circulate  in  place  of  coin,  as  a 
substitute  and  an  equivalent,  such  circulation  is  safe,  convenient, 
and  economical.  And  what  is  the  limit  of  such  safe  circulation? 
Economic  science  has  demonstrated,  and  the  uniform  experi 
ence  of  nations  has  proved,  that  the  term  which  marks  that  limit, 
the  sole  and  supreme  test  of  safety,  is  the  exchangeability  of 
such  paper  for  coin,  dollar  for  dollar,  at  the  will  of  the  holder. 
The  smallest  increase  in  volume  beyond  that  limit  produces 
depreciation  in  the  value  of  each  paper  dollar.  It  now  requires 
more  of  such  depreciated  dollars  to  purchase  a  given  quantity 
of  gold  or  of  merchandise  than  it  did  before  depreciation  began. 
In  other  words,  prices  rise  in  comparison  with  such  currency. 
The  fact  that  it  is  made  a  legal  tender  for  taxes  and  private 
debts  does  not  free  it  from  the  inexorable  law  that  increase  of 
volume  decreases  the  value  of  every  part. 

It  is  equally  true  that  an  increase  of  the  precious  metals, 
coined  or  uncoined,  decreases  their  value  in  comparison  with 
other  commodities ;  but  these  metals  are  of  such  universal  cur 
rency,  on  account  of  their  intrinsic  value,  that  they  flow  to  all 
parts  of  the  civilized  world,  and  the  increase  is  so  widely  dis 
tributed  that  it  produces  but  a  small  increase  of  prices  in  any 
one  country.  Not  so  with  an  inconvertible  paper  money.  It  is 
not  of  universal  currency.  It  is  national,  not  international.  It 
is  non-exportable.  The  whole  effect  of  its  depreciation  is  felt 
at  home.  The  level  of  Salt  Lake  has  risen  ten  feet  during  the 
last  thirty  years,  because  it  has  no  outlet.  But  all  the  floods  of 
the  world  have  made  no  perceptible  change  in  the  general  level 
of  the  sea. 

The  character  of  inconvertible  paper  money,  the  relation  of 
its  quantity  to  its  value,  and  its  inevitable  depreciation  by  an 
increase  of  volume,  were  demonstrated  in  the  Bullion  Report  of 
1810  by  facts  and  arguments  whose  force  and  conclusiveness 
have  never  been  shaken.  In  the  great  debate  that  followed,  in 
Parliament  and  through  the  press,  may  be  found  the  counter 
part  of  almost  every  doctrine  and  argument  which  has  been 
advanced  in  our  own  country  since  the  suspension  of  specie 
payments.  Then,  as  no\\,  there  were  statesmen,  doctrinaires, 
and  business  men,  who  insisted  that  the  bank-notes  were  not 


THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT.  26$ 

depreciated,  but  that  gold  had  risen  in  value ;  who  denied  that 
gold  coin  was  any  longer  the  standard  of  value,  and  declared 
that  a  bank-note  was  "  abstract  currency."  Castlereagh  an 
nounced,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  that  the  money  standard 
was  "  a  sense  of  value,  in  reference  to  currency  as  compared  with 
commodities"  Another  soft-money  man  of  that  day  said  :  "  The 
standard  is  neither  gold  nor  silver,  but  something  set  up  in  the 
imagination,  to  be  regulated  by  public  opinion."  Though  the 
doctrines  of  the  Bullion  Report  were  at  first  voted  down  in  Par 
liament,  they  could  not  be  suppressed.  With  the  dogged  per 
sistency  which  characterizes  our  British  neighbors,  the  debate 
was  kept  up  for  ten  years.  Every  proposition  and  counter 
proposition  was  sifted,  the  intelligence  and  cpnscience  of  the 
nation  were  invoked;  the  soft-money  men  were  driven  from 
every  position  they  occupied  in  1811,  and  at  last  the  ancient 
standard  was  restored.  When  the  Bank  redeemed  its  notes,  the 
difference  between  the  mint  price  and  the  market  price  of  bul 
lion  disappeared,  and  the  volume  of  paper  money  was  reduced 
in  the  ratio  of  its  former  depreciation.  During  the  last  half- 
century  few  Englishmen  have  risked  their  reputation  for  intelli 
gence  by  denying  the  doctrines  thus  established. 

These  lessons  of  history  cannot  be  wholly  forgotten.  It  is 
too  late  to  set  up  again  the  doctrines  of  Lowndes  and  Vansit- 
tart.  They  may  disturb  and  distract  public  opinion,  but  can 
never  again  triumph  before  an  intelligent  tribunal.  I  commend 
to  the  soft-money  men  of  our  time  the  study  of  this  great  de 
bate,  and  that  of  1695.  When  they  have  overturned  the  doc 
trines  of  Locke  and  Newton,  and  of  the  Bullion  Report,  it  will 
be  time  for  them  to  invite  us  to  follow  their  new  theories. 

But  we  need  not  go  abroad  to  obtain  illustrations  of  the  truth 
that  the  only  cure  for  depreciation  of  the  currency  is  converti 
bility  into  coin.  Our  American  Colonies,  our  Continental  Con 
gress,  and  our  State  and  national  governments,  have  demon 
strated  its  truth  by  repeated  and  calamitous  experiments.  The 
fathers  who  drafted  our  Constitution  believed  they  had  "  shut 
and  bolted  the  door  against  irredeemable  paper  money";  and 
since  then  no  President,  no  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  has  pro 
posed  or  sanctioned  a  paper  currency,  in  time  of  peace,  not  re 
deemable  in  coin  at  the  will  of  the  holder.  Search  our  records 
from  1787  to  1 86 1,  and  select  from  any  decade  twenty  of  our 
most  illustrious  statesmen,  and  it  will  be  found  that  not  less  than 


266  THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 

nineteen  of  them  have  left  on  record,  in  the  most  energetic 
language,  their  solemn  protest  and  warning  against  the  very 
doctrines  we  are  opposing. 

The  limits  of  this  article  will  allow  only  the  briefest  state 
ment  of :.  that  flow  from  a  depreciated  currency,  —  evils 
both  to  the  government  and  to  the  people,  which  overbalance, 
a  thousand  to  one,  all  its  real  or  supposed  benefits.     The  word 
"  dollar  "  is  the  substantive  word,  the  fundamental  condition,  of 
contract,  of  every  sale,  of  every  payment,  whether  at  the 
..TV  or  at  the  stand  of  the  apple- woman  in  the  street     The 
:ae  gauge  that  measures  every  blow  of  the  hammer, 
cvciy   article    of   merchandise,    every   exchange   of  property. 
Forced  by  the  m  of  war,  we  substituted  for  this  dollar 
the  printed  promise  of  the  government  to  pay  a  dollar.     That 
.se  we  have  not  kept.     \Ve  have  suspended  payment,  and 
have  compelled  the  citizen  to  receive  dishonored  paper  in  place 
of  money.     The  representative  value  of  that  paper  has  passed, 
:  usands  of  fluctuations,  from  one  hundred  cents  down  to 
thirty-eight,  and  back  again  to  ninety.     At  every  change  mil 
lions  of  men  have  suffered  loss.     In  the  midst  of  war,  with  rising 
prices  and  enormous  gains,  these  losses  were  tolerable.     But 
now,  when  we  are  slowly  and  painfully  making  our  way  back  to 
the  level  of  peace,  now  when  the  pressure  of  hard  times  is  upon 
ind  trade  depend  for  their  gains  upon  small 
margins  of  profit,  the  uncertainty  is  an  intolerable  evil.     That 
uncertainty  is  increased  by  doubts  as  to  what  Congress  will  do. 
Men  hesitate  to  invest  their  capital  in  business,  when  a  vote  in 
may  shrink  it  by  half  its  value.     Still  more  striking 
:f  such  a  currency  in  its  effects  upon  international 
commerce.     Our  purchases  from  and  sales  to  foreign  nations 
amount  in  the  aggregate  to  $  1 , 200,000,000  per  annum,  every 
dollar  of  which  is  measured  in  coin.     Those  who  export  our 
products  buy  with  paper  and  sell  for  gold.     Our  importers  buy 
and  sell  for  paper.     Thus  the  aggregate  value  of  our 
r.al  exchanges  is  measured,  successively,  by  the  two 
standards.     The   loss   occasioned    by  the   fluctuation  of  these 
~cies  in  reference  to  each  other  falls  wholly  on  us.     \Ve 
alone  use  paper  as  a  standard.     And  who  among  us  bears  the 
The    importer,  knowing  the  risk  he   runs,  adds   to  his 
prices  a  sufficient   percentage   to   insure   himself  against  loss. 
This  addition  is  charged  over  from  importer  to  jobber,  from 


THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT.  267 

jobber  to  retailer,  until  its  dead  weight  falls  at  last  upon  the 
laborer  who  consumes  the  goods.  In  the  same  way,  the  ex 
porter  insures  himself  against  loss  by  marking  down  the  prices 
he  will  pay  for  products  to  be  sent  abroad.  In  all  such  trans 
actions  capital  is  usually  able  to  take  care  of  itself.  The  la 
borer  has  but  one  commodity  for  sale,  his  day's  work.  It  is 
his  sole  reliance.  He  must  sell  it  to-day,  or  it  is  lost  forever. 
What  he  buys  must  be  bought  to-day.  He  cannot  wait  till 
prices  fall.  He  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  market.  Buying  or  sell 
ing,  the  waves  of  its  fluctuations  beat  against  him.  Daniel 
Webster  never  uttered  a  more  striking  truth  than  when  he  said : 
"  Of  all  the  contrivances  for  cheating  the  laboring  classes  of 
mankind,  none  has  been  more  effectual  than  that  which  deludes 
them  with  paper  money.  This  is  the  most  effectual  of  inven 
tions  to  fertilize  the  rich  man's  field  by  the  sweat  of  the  poor 
man's  brow." 

But  here  we  are  met  by  the  interconvertible-bond-and-cur- 
rency  men,  who  offer  to  emancipate  us  from  the  tyranny  of  gold 
and  secure  a  more  perfect  standard  than  coin  has  ever  been. 
Let  us  see.  Our  five  per  cent  bonds  are  now  on  a  par  with 
gold.  Any  actuary  will  testify  that  in  the  same  market  a  3.65 
bond,  payable,  principal  and  interest,  in  gold,  and  having  the 
same  time  to  run,  is  worth  but  seventy-five  cents  in  gold ;  that 
is,  thirteen  cents  less  than  the  present  greenback.  How  much 
less  the  bond  will  be  worth  if  its  interest  be  made  payable  in  the 
proposed  interconvertible  currency,  no  mortal  can  calculate.  It 
is  proposed,  then,  to  make  the  new  currency  equivalent  to  a 
bond  which,  at  its  birth,  is  thirteen  cents  below  the  greenback 
of  to-day.  We  are  to  take  a  long  leap  downward  at  the  first 
bound.  But  "  interconvertibility  "  is  the  charm,  the  "subtle 
principle,"  the  great  "  regulator  of  finance,"  which  will  adjust 
everything.  The  alternate  ebb  and  flow  of  bond  into  paper 
dollar,  and  paper  dollar  into  bond,  will  preserve  an  equilibrium, 
an  equipoise;  and  this  equipoise  is  the  base  line  from  which 
to  measure  the  new  standard  of  value.  The  lad  who  sold  his 
two-dollar  dog  for  fifty  dollars,  and  took  his  pay  in  pups  at  ten 
dollars  each,  never  doubted  that  he  had  made  a  profit  of  forty- 
eight  dollars  until  he  found  how  small  a  sum  the  whole  litter 
would  sell  for  in  the  market. 

Undoubtedly  the  beam  will  lie  level  that  is  weighted  with  the 
bond  at  one  end  and  the  paper  money  at  the  other.  But  what 


268  THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 

will  be  the  relation  of  that  level  to  the  level  of  real  values? 
Both  the  bond  and  the  currency  are  instruments  of  credit,  evi 
dences  of  debt.  They  cannot  escape  the  dominion  of  those  uni 
versal  laws  that  regulate  prices.  If  made  by  law  the  only  legal 
tender,  such  a  currency  would  doubtless  occupy  the  field.  But 
what  would  be  the  result?  To  a  certain  extent  the  bonds  them 
selves  would  be  used  as  currency.  The  clearing-house  banks 
of  New  York  would  doubtless  be  glad  to  get  interest-bearing 
bonds  instead  of  the  government  certificates  of  indebtedness 
bearing  no  interest,  which  for  convenience  they  now  use  in 
the  settlement  of  their  balances.  The  reserves  of  public  and 
private  banks,  which  now  amount  to  more  than  $200,000,000, 
would  largely  be  held  in  these  interest-bearing  bonds.  Thus 
the  first  step  would  result  in  compelling  the  government  to  pay 
interest  on  a  large  portion  of  the  reserves  of  all  the  banks,  pub 
lic  and  private.  It  will  hardly  be  claimed,  however,  that  any 
body  will  part  with  his  property  for  bonds  of  this  description, 
to  hold  as  a  permanent  investment.  Capital  in  this  country  is 
worth  more  than  3.65  per  cent.  How  then  will  the  new  cur 
rency  be  set  afloat?  The  treasury  can  pay  it  out  only  in  ex 
change  for  the  new  bonds,  or  in  payment  of  public  dues.  Shall 
we  violate  public  faith  by  paying  the  gold  bonds  already  out 
standing  in  this  new  and  greatly  depreciated  paper?  Or  shall 
we,  as  some  of  the  soft-money  men  have  proposed,  enter  upon 
a  vast  system  of  public  works  in  order  to  put  the  new  currency 
in  circulation?  No  doubt  means  would  be  found  to  push  it  into 
circulation,  so  long  as  enterprise  or  speculation  should  offer  a 
hope  of  greater  profits  than  3.65  per  cent.  Once  out,  it  would 
inevitably  prove  a  repetition  of  the  old  story :  an  artificial  stimu 
lation  of  business  and  of  speculation  ;  large  issues  of  currency ; 
inflation  of  prices,  depreciation  of  paper,  delirium,  prostration ; 
"  up  like  a  rocket,  then  down  like  a  stick."  They  tell  us  that  this 
cannot  happen,  because,  as  the  volume  of  paper  increases,  the 
rate  of  interest  will  fall,  and  when  it  reaches  3.65  per  cent  the 
currency  will  be  exchanged  for  bonds.  But  all  experience  is 
against  them.  Inflation  has  never  brought  down  the  rate  of 
interest.  In  fact,  the  rate  is  always  highest  in  countries  afflicted 
with  irredeemable  paper  money.  For  all  practical  purposes,  the 
proposed  currency  would  be  unredeemed  and  irredeemable;  and 
this  is  what  its  advocates  desire.  General  Butler  sees  "  no  more 
reason  for  redeeming  the  measure  of  value  than  for  redeeming 


THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT.  269 

the  yardstick  or  the  quart  pot."  This  shows  the  utmost  confu 
sion  of  ideas.  We  do  not  redeem  the  yardstick  or  the  quart  pot. 
They  are,  in  reality,  what  they  profess  to  be.  There  is  nothing 
better  for  measuring  yards  than  a  yardstick.  But,  in  regard  to 
the  yardstick,  we  do  what  is  strictly  analogous  to  redemption 
when  applied  to  currency.  We  preserve  our  yardstick  undi- 
minished  and  unchanged ;  and,  by  the  solemn  sanction  of  penal 
law,  we  require  that  it  shall  be  applied  to  the  purchase  and  sale 
of  all  commodities  that  can  be  measured  by  the  standard  of 
length.  The  citizen  who  buys  by  a  longer  yardstick  or  sells  by 
a  shorter  one  than  our  standard,  is  punished  as  a  felon.  Com 
mon  honesty  requires  that  we  restore,  and  with  equal  care  pre 
serve  from  diminution  or  change,  our  standard  of  value. 

It  has  been  already  shown  that  the  soft-money  men  desire  a 
vast  increase  of  currency  above  the  present  volume.  The  as 
sumed  necessity  for  such  an  increase  was  a  leading  topic  in  the 
debates  that  preceded  the  late  elections.  The  argument,  often 
repeated,  ran  substantially  thus :  — 

"  Fellow-citizens,  you  are  in  great  distress.  The  smoke  of  your  fur 
naces  no  longer  ascends  to  the  sky ;  the  clang  of  your  mills  and  work 
shops  is  no  longer  heard.  Your  workers  in  metal  and  miners  in  coal  are 
out  of  employment.  Stagnation  of  trade,  depression  of  business,  and 
public  distress  are  seen  on  every  hand.  What  has  caused  these  disas 
ters  ?  Manifestly,  a  lack  of  money.  Is  there  any  man  among  you  who 
has  money  enough?  If  there  be  let  him  stand  forth  and  declare  it.  Is 
there  one  who  does  not  need  more  money  to  carry  on  his  business  ? 
[Cries  of  No  !  No  !]  The  hard-money  men  have  brought  you  to  this 
distress,  by  contracting  the  volume  of  the  currency,  by  destroying  the 
people's  money,  your  money.  And  they  propose  to  complete  your  ruin 
by  forcing  the  country  to  resume  specie  payments.  We  come  to  save 
you  from  this  ruin.  We  insist  that  you  shall  have  more  money,  not  less. 
We  are  resolved  to  make  and  keep  the  volume  of  currency  '  equal  to  the 
wants  of  trade.'  " 

These  assumptions  were  answered  by  undeniable  facts.  It 
was  shown  that  our  large  volume  of  paper  currency  had  helped 
to  bring  on  the  crisis  of  1873,  and  had  greatly  aggravated  its 
effects ;  but  that  the  main  cause  was  speculation,  overtrading, 
and,  in  some  branches  of  business,  a  production  beyond  the 
demands  of  the  market.  A  striking  illustration  of  the  effect  of 
over-production  was  drawn  from  the  history  of  one  of  the  in 
terior  counties  of  Northern  Ohio. 


2/0  THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 

In  the  midst  of  a  wilderness,  far  away  from  the  centres  of 
trade,  the  pioneers  commenced  the  settlement  of  the  county  at 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  Year  by  year  their  num 
ber  was  augmented.  Each  new  settler  was  compelled  to  buy 
provisions  for  his  family  until  he  could  raise  his  first  crop.  For 
several  years  this  demand  afforded  a  ready  market,  at  good 
prices,  for  all  the  products  of  the  farm.  But  in  1818  the  supply 
greatly  exceeded  the  demand.  The  wheat  market  was  so  glut 
ted  that  twenty  bushels  were  frequently  offered  for  one  pound 
of  tea,  and  often  refused,  because  tea  could  be  bought  only  for 
money,  and  wheat  could  hardly  be  sold  at  all.  If  the  soft-money 
men  of  our  time  had  been  among  those  farmers,  they  would 
have  insisted  that  more  money  would  raise  the  price  of  their 
wheat  and  set  the  ploughboys  at  work.  But  the  pioneers  knew 
that,  until  the  stock  on  hand  was  reduced,  the  production  of 
another  bushel  to  be  sold  would  be  labor  wasted.  The  cry 
for  more  currency  shows  that  soft-money  men  confound  credit 
with  capital,  and  that  they  vaguely  imagine  that  if  more  paper 
dollars  were  printed  they  could  be  borrowed  without  security. 

In  whatever  form  the  new  currency  be  proposed,  whether  in 
the  so-called  absolute  money  or  in  the  "  interconvertible  paper 
money  tokens,"  as  a  relief  from  distress  it  is  a  delusion  and  a 
snare.  All  these  schemes  are  reckless  attempts  to  cut  loose 
from  real  money,  —  the  money  known  and  recognized  through 
out  the  world,  —  and  to  adopt  for  our  standard  that  which  a 
great  gold  gambler  of  Wall  Street  aptly  called  "  phantom  gold." 
Their  authors  propose  a  radical  and  dangerous  innovation  in 
our  political  system.  They  desire  to  make  the  national  treas 
ury  a  bank  of  issue,  and  to  place  in  the  control  of  Congress  the 
vast  money  power  of  the  nation,  to  be  handled  as  the  whim,  the 
caprice,  the  necessities,  of  political  parties  may  dictate.  Fed 
eralist  as  Hamilton  was,  he  held  that  such  a  power  was  too 
great  to  be  centralized  in  the  hands  of  one  body.  This  goes  a 
hundred  leagues  beyond  any  measure  of  centralization  that  has 
yet  been  adopted  or  suggested. 

In  view  of  the  doctrines  herein  advocated,  what  shall  be  said 
of  the  present  condition  of  our  currency?  It  is  depreciated. 
Its  purchasing  power  is  less  than  that  of  real  money  by  about 
fourteen  per  cent.  Our  notes  are  at  a  discount;  not  because 
the  ability  of  the  nation  to  redeem  them  is  questioned,  but 
partly  because  its  good  faith  is  doubted,  and  partly  because  the 


THE   CURRENCY  CONFLICT.  271 

volume  of  these  notes  is  too  great  to  circulate  at  par.  What 
that  volume  ought  to  be  no  man  can  tell.  Convertibility  into 
coin  is  a  perfect  test,  and  is  the  only  test.  The  duty  of  the  gov 
ernment  to  make  its  currency  equal  to  real  money  is  undeni 
able  and  imperative. 

First,  because  the  public  faith  is  most  solemnly  pledged,  and 
this  alone  is  a  conclusive  and  unanswerable  reason  why  it  should 
be  done.  The  perfidy  of  one  man,  or  of  a  million  men,  is  as 
nothing  compared  with  the  perfidy  of  a  nation.  The  public 
faith  was  the  talisman  that  brought  to  the  treasury  thirty-five 
hundred  million  dollars  in  loans,  to  save  the  life  of  the  nation, 
which  was  not  worth  saving  if  its  honor  be  not  also  saved.  The 
public  faith  is  our  only  hope  of  safety  from  the  dangers  that 
may  assail  us  in  the  future.  The  public  faith  was  pledged  to 
redeem  these  notes  in  the  very  act  which  created  them,  and  the 
pledge  was  repeated  when  each  additional  issue  was  ordered. 
It  was  again  repeated  in  the  act  of  1869,  known  as  the  "  Act  to 
strengthen  the  Public  Credit,"  and  yet  again  in  the  act  of  1875, 
promising  redemption  in  1879. 

Second,  the  government  should  make  its  currency  equal  to 
gold  because  the  material  prosperity  of  its  people  demands  it. 
Honest  dealing  between  man  and  man  requires  it.  Just  and 
equal  legislation  for  the  people,  safety  in  trade,  domestic  and 
foreign,  security  in  business,  just  distribution  of  the  rewards  of 
labor,  —  none  of  these  are  possible  until  the  present  false  and  un 
certain  standard  of  value  has  given  place  to  the  real,  the  certain, 
the  universal  standard.  Its  restoration  will  hasten  the  revival  of 
commercial  confidence,  which  is  the  basis  of  all  sound  credit. 

Third,  public  morality  demands  the  re-establishment  of  our 
ancient  standard.  The  fever  of  speculation,  which  our  fluctu 
ating  currency  has  engendered,  cannot  be  allayed  till  its  cause 
is  destroyed.  A  majority  of  all  the  crimes  relating  to  money 
that  have  been  committed  in  public  and  private  life  since  the 
war  have  grown  out  of  the  innumerable  opportunities  for  sud 
den  and  inordinate  gains  which  this  fluctuation  has  offered. 

The  gold  panic  of  1869,  which  overwhelmed  thousands  of 
business  men  in  ruin,  and  the  desperate  gambling  in  gold  which 
is  to-day  absorbing  so  many  millions  of  capital  that  ought  to  be 
employed  in  producing  wealth,  were  made  possible  only  by  the 
difference  between  paper  and  gold.  Resumption  will  destroy 
all  that  at  a  blow.  It  will  enable  all  men  to  see  the  real  situa- 


272  THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT. 

tion  of  their  affairs,  and  will  do  much  toward  dissipating  those 
unreal  and  fascinating  visions  of  wealth  to  be  won  without  in 
dustry  which  have  broken  the  fortunes  and  ruined  the  morals 
of  so  many  active  and  brilliant  citizens. 

My  limits  will  not  allow  a  discussion  of  the  hardship  and 
evils  which  it  is  feared  will  accompany  the  restoration  of  the  old 
standard.  Whatever  they  may  be,  they  will  be  light  and  tran 
sient  in  comparison  with  those  we  shall  endure  if  the  doctrine 
of  soft  money  prevails.  I  am  not  able  to  see  why  the  approach 
to  specie  may  not  be  made  so  gradual  that  the  fluctuations  in 
any  one  month  will  be  less  than  those  which  we  have  suffered 
from  month  to  month  since  1869.  We  have  travelled  more  than 
half  the  distance  which  then  separated  us  from  the  gold  standard. 

A  scale  of  appreciation  like  that  by  which  England  resumed 
in  1821  would  greatly  mitigate  the  hardships  arising  from  the 
movement.  Those  who  believe  that  the  volume  of  our  cur 
rency  is  but  little  above  its  normal  level  need  not  fear  that  there 
will  be  much  contraction ;  for,  with  free  banking,  they  may  be 
sure  that  all  the  paper  which  can  be  an  actual  substitute  for 
money  will  remain  in  circulation.  No  other  ought  to  circulate. 

The  advocates  of  soft  money  are  loud  in  their  denunciation  of 
the  English  Resumption  Act  of  1819,  and  parade  the  distorted 
views  of  that  small  and  malignant  minority  of  English  writers 
who  have  arraigned  the  act  as  the  cause  of  the  agricultural  dis 
tress  of  1822,  and  the  financial  crash  which  followed,  in  1825. 
The  charge  is  absolutely  unjust  and  unfounded.  In  1822  a 
committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  having  investigated  the 
causes  of  the  agricultural  distress  of  that  and  the  preceding  year, 
found  that  it  was  due  to  the  operation  of  the  corn  laws,  and  to 
the  enormous  wheat  crops  of  the  two  preceding  seasons.  Their 
report  makes  no  reference  to  the  resumption  act  as  a  cause  of 
the  distress.  In  both  that  and  the  following  year,  a  few  of  the 
old  opponents  of  hard  money  offered  resolutions  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  declaring  that  the  resumption  act  was  one  of  the 
causes  of  the  public  distress.  The  resolution  of  1822  was  de 
feated  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  forty-one  to  twenty-seven, 
and  that  of  1823  was  defeated  by  the  still  more  decisive  vote 
of  one  hundred  and  ninety-two  to  thirty.  An  overwhelming 
majority  of  intelligent  Englishmen  look  back  with  pride  and 
satisfaction  upon  the  act  of  resumption  as  a  just  and  benefi 
cent  measure. 


THE    CURRENCY  CONFLICT.  273- 

But  methods  and  details  of  management  are  of  slight  impor 
tance  in  comparison  with  the  central  purpose  so  often  expressed 
by  the  nation.  From  that  purpose  there  should  be  no  retreat. 
To  postpone  its  fulfilment  beyond  the '  day  already  fixed  is 
both  dangerous  and  useless.  It  will  make  the  task  harder  than 
ever.  Resumption  could  have  been  accomplished  in  1867  with 
less  difficulty  than  it  can  be  in  1879.  It  can  be  accomplished 
more  easily  in  1879  than  at  any  later  date.  It  is  said  that  we 
ought  to  wait  until  the  vast  mass  of  private  debts  can  be  adjust 
ed.  But  when  will  that  be  done?  Horace  has  told  us  of  a 
rustic  traveller  who  stood  on  the  bank  of  a  river,  waiting  for  its 
waters  to  flow  by,  that  he  might  cross  over  in  safety:  "At 
ille  (abitur  et  labetur  in  omne  volubilis  aevum."  The  succes 
sion  of  debts  and  debtors  will  be  as  perpetual  as  the  flow  of 
the  river. 

We  ought  to  be  inspired  by  the  recent  brilliant  example  of 
France.  Suffering  unparalleled  disasters,  she  was  compelled  to 
issue  a  vast  volume  of  legal-tender  notes  in  order  to  meet  her 
obligations.  But  as  soon  as  the  great  indemnity  was  paid,  she 
addressed  herself  resolutely  to  the  work  of  bringing  her  cur 
rency  up  to  the  standard  of  gold.  During  the  last  two  years, 
she  has  reduced  her  paper  currency  nearly  750,000,000  francs ; 
and  now  it  is  substantially  at  par.  Amidst  all  her  disasters  she 
has  kept  her  financial  credit  untarnished.  And  this  has  been 
her  strength  and  her  safety.  To  meet  the  great  indemnity,  she 
asked  her  people  for  a  loan  of  3,000,000,000  francs;  and  twelve 
and  a  half  times  the  amount  was  subscribed.  In  August,  1874, 
the  American  Minister  at  Paris  said,  in  one  of  his  despatches : 
"  Though  immense  amounts  were  taken  abroad,  yet  it  seems 
they  are  all  coming  back  to  France,  and  are  now  being  absorbed 
in  small  sums  by  the  common  people.  The  result  will  be,  in 
the  end,  that  almost  the  entire  loan  will  be  held  in  France. 
Every  person  in  the  whole  country  is  wishing  to  invest  a  few 
hundred  francs  in  the  new  loan,  and  it  has  reached  a  premium 
of  four  and  one  half  to  five  per  cent." 

Our  public  faith  is  the  symbol  of  our  honor  and  the  pledge 
of  our  future  safety.  By  every  consideration  of  national  honor, 
of  public  justice,  and  of  sound  policy,  let  us  stand  fast  in  the 
resolution  to  restore  our  currency  to  the  standard  of  gold. 

VOL.  ii.  18 


THE   DIPLOMATIC  AND   CONSULAR 
SERVICE. 

REMARKS  MADE  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 
FEBRUARY  7,  1876. 


MR.  GARFIELD  made  the  following  remarks  in  the  Committee  of  the 
Whole,  pending  the  bill  making  appropriations  for  the  diplomatic  and 
consular  expenses  of  the  government  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30, 
1877,  and  for  other  purposes. 

MR.  CHAIRMAN,  — I  do  not  desire  to  detain  the  House 
long,  nor  to  make  anything  like  an  elaborate  argument 
on  this  bill;  but  I  wish,  if  possible,  to  appeal  to  the  judgment 
of  the  House  as  I  would  to  a  board  of  trade  in  an  important 
business  transaction.  There  is,  I  think,  no  bill  on  the  whole 
list  of  appropriation  bills  more  commercial  in  its  character, 
more  largely  based  upon  business  principles,  than  the  bill  which 
makes  appropriations  for  our  diplomatic  and  consular  expendi 
tures.  There  ought  to  be  no  party  politics  in  such  a  bill.  We 
ought  to  go  to  work  upon  it  as  though  we  were  a  board  of  rail 
way  directors  making  provision  for  the  management  of  our 
road.  And  in  what  I  shall  say,  I  hope  there  will  not  be  found 
a  tinge  of  partisanship. 

I  will  say,  in  the  outset,  that  I  sympathize  with  the  Committee 
on  Appropriations  in  all  their  laudable  efforts  to  cut  down  ex 
penditures.  I  know  how  hard  that  task  is;  I  know  how  much  of 
local  pressure  is  brought  to  bear  upon  them  from  every  quarter 
from  interested  parties  who  desire  to  swell  appropriations ;  and 
I  know,  moreover,  that  every  executive  department  tends  to 
enlarge  the  field  of  expenditure  within  its  jurisdiction,  so  that 
it  is  the  business  of  that  committee  to  resist  pressure  from  all 
sides,  —  pressure  from  the  Administration,  pressure  from  this 


DIPLOMATIC  AND  CONSULAR  SERVICE.        275 

House,  and  pressure  from  their  friends  outside,  who  are  always 
asking  for  more. 

Now,  I  sympathize  with  the  committee  in  their  efforts  at 
reform.  I  think  there  are  several  places  where  they  can  cut 
down  very  decidedly.  Without  stopping  to  indicate  particulars, 
I  will  say  generally  that  on  the  Fortification  Bill,  (though  it  was 
smaller  the  last  year  than  ever  before,)  they  can  make  and 
ought  to  make  a  good  deal  of  reduction.  In  all  that  relates  to 
public  works,  public  buildings,  rivers  and  harbors,  whole  estab 
lishments  in  the  way  of  construction  can  be  and  ought  to  be 
considerably  reduced.  I  have  no  doubt,  also,  that  the  same  is 
true  of  many  of  our  civil  establishments  here  in  Washington, 
that  grew  largely  out  of  the  war,  and  became  greatly  over 
grown  in  consequence  of  the  work  which  the  war  threw  upon 
them.  I  think  there  ought  to  be  a  reduction  of  ten  or  fifteen 
millions  below  the  appropriations  of  last  session.  But  I  am 
not  a  little  surprised,  I  must  confess,  to  find  the  bill  now  before 
us  reported  in  its  present  shape  by  the  Committee  on  Appro 
priations. 

I  believe  every  gentleman  of  intelligence  on  this  floor  will 
admit  that  the  foreign  service  of  the  United  States,  the  State 
Department,  both  as  it  is  exhibited  at  home  in  its  civil  func 
tions  and  abroad  in  its  diplomatic  and  consular  functions,  has 
been  for  years  the  most  economically  conducted,  the  most 
honestly  managed,  the  most  carefully  kept  up,  of  any  of  ouif 
departments.  All  men  of  all  parties  in  years  past  have  given 
their  testimony  to  that  general  truth.  Now,  when  I  remember 
that  our  diplomatic  expenses,  in  recent  years,  have  been  only 
about  a  million  and  a  third  of  dollars  per  annum  for  all  our 
complicated  relations,  consular  and  diplomatic,  it  seems  to  me 
a  surprising  thing,  considering  the  magnitude  of  our  govern 
ment  and  the  extent  of  our  relations  to  the  world,  that  we  have 
been  able  to  keep  them  down  to  so  low  a  figure. 

The  bill  proposes,  I  believe,  a  reduction  of  $435,000  on  an 
aggregate  of  about  $1,350,000.  A  little  more  than  $174,000  of 
this  reduction,  as  I  understand,  it  is  proposed  to  make  in  the 
diplomatic  service  by  cutting  off  six  ministers,  by  reducing  the 
salaries  of  others,  and  by  reducing  the  contingent  and  other 
expenses  relating  to  the  diplomatic  service.  In  the  consular 
service  the  proposed  reduction  is  about  $260,000.  The  com 
mittee  propose  to  abolish  forty-four  consulates  and  consular 


2/6         DIPLOMATIC  AND  CONSULAR  SERVICE. 

agencies,  and  to  make  a  reduction  in  contingent  and  other  ex 
penses  connected  with  the  consular  service. 

I  will  say  but  little  in  regard  to  the  salaries  of  ministers 
abroad,  or  in  regard  to  the  general  treatment  that  our  foreign 
ministers  receive  in  this  bill.  If  gentlemen  will  examine  the 
statutes  as  they  stood  prior  to  the  act  of  1855,  they  will  find 
that  our  laws  regulating  the  salaries  of  foreign  ministers  had 
stood  unchanged  since  1803.  Yet  in  that  period  our  ministers 
of  the  highest  grade  were  receiving  in  some  instances  as  high 
as  $23,250  a  year  in  salary  and  allowances,  on  account  of  the 
method  then  followed  of  giving  an  outfit  and  an  infit,  and  in 
consequence  of  their  remaining  in  service  for  a  very  short  time. 
Under  that  system  great  evils  grew  up.  A  man  would  get  his 
outfit,  which  was  equivalent  to  one  year's  salary ;  he  would  stay 
at  home  six  or  eight  months  before  starting  for  his  post  of 
duty,  drawing  pay  from  the  date  of  accepting  his  commission ; 
he  would  then  go  abroad  and  stay  a  few  months,  get  his  year's 
salary,  together  with  an  infit  of  $2,250,  and  come  home.  To 
show  that  I  do  not  speak  at  random,  I  quote  the  following 
paragraph  from  a  speech  made  by  Mr.  Mason,  of  Virginia,  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  when  the  bill  of  1855  was  under 
discussion. 

"  Under  the  present  system,  —  I  cannot  call  it  the  present  law,  there 
being  very  little  legislation  applicable  to  the  subject,  —  the  actual  allow 
ance  to  a  minister  plenipotentiary  to  any  of  the  courts  for  the  first  year 
of  his  mission  is  $23,250.  The  amounts,  very  briefly,  which  make  up 
that  sum  are,  outfit,  $9,000;  salary,  $9,000;  infit,  $2,250;  and  the 
average  of  the  overlapping  salary,  $3,000 ;  making  $23,250  as  the  actual 
expenses  to  the  government  in  the  case  of  a  foreign  minister  who  re 
mains  abroad  one  year.  If  he  remains  abroad  two  years  upon  a  full 
mission,  under  the  present  system,  the  actual  expense  to  the  govern 
ment  is  $32,250,  and  the  receipts  of  the  minister,  $16,250  [annually], 
If  he  remains  abroad  four  years,  or  one  Presidential  term,  the  actual 
expense  to  the  government  is  $50,250,  and  the  receipts  of  the  minister 
are  $12,562  [annually]."1 

It  was  found  that  some  of  our  representatives  abroad  were 
paid  far  too  much,  while  the  majority  of  those  who  served  any 
great  length  of  time  were  paid  such  small  salaries  that  none  but 
wealthy  men  coujd  enter  the  service.  And  so,  after  a  most 
elaborate  debate,  which  gentlemen  will  find  in  the  Globe  for 

1  Congressional  Globe,  February  24,  1855,  p.  917. 


DIPLOMATIC  AND  CONSULAR  SERVICE.        277 

1855,  witn  faM  tables  and  exhibits  showing  the  working  of  our 
consular  and  diplomatic  system,  —  information  very  instructive 
indeed,  —  a  discussion  in  which  the  giants  of  debate  in  both 
houses  took  part,  —  it  was  found  that  the  majority  of  our  min 
isters  who  served  any  considerable  time  were  wretchedly  under 
paid,  considering  the  cost  of  living  abroad  at  that  time.  So 
the  salary  of  $17,500,  without  allowances,  without  outfit  or  infit, 
was  fixed  upon  as  a  fair,  reasonable  compensation  for  first-class 
ministers.  The  bill  passed  in  1855,  Whigs  and  Democrats  alike 
agreeing  to  it  as  a  wise  measure. 

Now,  every  man  knows  that  the  cost  of  living  throughout  the 
world  has  almost  doubled  in  the  last  ten  years,  and  more  than 
doubled  in  many  countries  in  the  last  twenty  years.  Yet  with 
the  cost  of  living  so  greatly  increased,  with  all  the  items  going 
to  make  up  that  cost  so  greatly  enhanced,  the  Committee  on 
Appropriations  think  they  ought  to  cut  down  the  salaries  about 
twenty  per  cent  below  the  rates  fixed  twenty-one  years  ago. 
It  occurs  to  me,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  they  have  departed  from 
all  just  principles  of  business  management  in  their  judgment 
of  that  subject.  I  submit  this  suggestion  without  going  into 
details. 

Of  course  the  result  will  be  that  these  places  can  be  held  only 
by  rich  men.  By  the  law  of  natural  selection  it  brings  wealthy 
men  into  our  offices,  and  shuts  out  those  who  are  unable  out  of 
private  fortunes  to  live  abroad  and  do  duty  for  the  government. 
If  that  is  so,  if  gentlemen  desire  to  establish  a  plutocracy  in  this 
country,  let  us  have  it,  but  let  us  have  it  with  our  eyes  open  to 
the  fact. 

I  do  not  care  much  about  some  of  the  missions  which  it  is 
proposed  to  abolish,  and  perhaps  some  of  them  can  be  abolished 
without  much  damage.  But  there  is  one  class  of  missions 
whose  abolition  I  should  regret  to  see,  as  a  great  calamity  to 
this  country.  I  speak  of  our  missions  to  the  South  American 
States,  Japan,  and  China.  There  is  no  part  of  the  world  where 
the  United  States  has  so  much  right  and  so  great  a  duty  to  be 
chief  in  the  councils  of  international  powers  as  in  South  Amer 
ica  on  the  one  side,  and  Japan  and  China  on  the  other.  And 
yet  our  friends  seem,  by  a  sort  of  fatuity,  to  have  seized  upon 
those  very  countries  as  the  places  in  which  to  limit  and  restrict 
our  diplomatic  relations.  I  do  not'believe  they  intended  to  do 
it.  I  must  believe  it  was  an  accident,  an  oversight.  We  are  to 


278         DIPLOMATIC  AND  CONSULAR  SERVICE. 

send  ministers  to  represent  us  at  three  or  four  South  American 
republics,  at  a  salary  of  $6,500  a  year  apiece.  As  an  example 
of  the  effect  of  this  bill,  I  submit  a  table  showing  the  British 
diplomatic  service  in  South  America,  taken  from  the  Blue  Book 
of  January  I,  1875,  contrasted  with  that  of  the  United  States  as 
fixed  by  the  present  bill. 

[The  table  is  here  omitted.  It  shows  that,  while  Great  Britain  expended 
$59>5°°  a  Year  on  ner  diplomatic  service  in  Chili,  Peru,  Ecuador,  Colom 
bia,  and  the  Argentine  Republic,  the  United  States  expended  but  $19,500.] 

It  is  proposed  that  we  shall  spend  but  $19,500  a  year  to  keep 
up  diplomatic  relations  with  these  countries  of  South  America, 
in  which  Great  Britain  is  spending  $59,500  for  the  same  pur 
pose.  We  allow  Great  Britain,  if  this  bill  shall  pass,  to  spend 
more  than  three  times  as  much  as  we  spend.  Can  any  man  be 
surprised  hereafter,  if  we  shall  cut  the  cords  which  bind  us  to 
the  South  American  republics  and  allow  Great  Britain  to  have  a 
stronger  hold  on  them,  —  that  the  trade,  the  business,  and  other 
interests  of  that  great  continent  shall  gravitate,  not  toward  us,  as 
they  ought  to  do,  but  toward  Great  Britain,  as  they  will? 

MR.  SPRINGER.  Will  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  tell  us  what  effect  the  res 
idence  of  a  minister  will  have  upon  our  commerce  with  those  countries  ? 

I  will  speak  of  their  commerce  when  I  come  to  speak  of  the 
consular  service.  Of  course,  the  object  of  ministers  to  these 
countries  is  to  keep  up  political  relations;  but  their  political 
headship  is  the  power  controlling  all  their  commercial  relations. 
We  need  at  the  capitals  of  these  States  intelligent,  cultivated 
American  gentlemen,  to  keep  us  informed  of  their  political 
condition  and  necessities.  We  need  our  men  there,  not  only 
to  inform  us,  but  to  encourage  these  young  republics.  On 
every  account  let  us  keep  up  our  relations  with  them.  I  would 
rather  blot  out  five  or  six  European  missions  than  these  South 
American  ones.  It  is  far  more  important  to  us  to  keep  them 
up.  I  beseech  gentlemen,  therefore,  to  strike  at  some  other 
nations  than  these  South  American  republics.  They  are  our 
neighbors  and  friends. 

Let  me  now  call  your  attention  to  our  consular  relations. 
This  bill  proposes  to  strike  out  forty  consulates  and  to  dispense 
with  four  commercial  agencies,  making  in  all  forty-four.  And 
the  chief  ground  for  this  is  that  we  do  not  get  enough  money 
back  from  these  consular  posts  to  make  up  the  expenses,  and 


DIPLOMATIC  AND  CONSULAR  SERVICE.        279 

therefore  we  must  cut  them  off.  Now  I  hold  in  my  hand,  and 
I  will  print  in  my  remarks,  a  statement  concerning  some  of  the 
consulates  cut  off  by  this  bill ;  and  in  order  to  show  how  Great 
Britain  treats  interests  of  this  class,  I  have  also  embraced  in  the 
table  a  statement  of  how  much  she  pays  for  consular  service 
at  the  same  places. 

[The  consulates  abolished  were  those  of  Ningpo,  Hakodadi,  Odessa, 
Beirut,  Tamatave,  Nantes,  La  Rochelle,  Algiers,  Barcelona,  Oporto, 
Santa  Cruz,  Copenhagen,  Port  Said,  Tampico,  Stettin,  Maranham,  Rio 
Grande,  Cyprus,  Bucharest,  Talcahuano,  and  Venice,  at  which  the 
United  States  paid  $32,500  in  salaries.  Great  Britain  paid  $81,350  in 
salaries  and  allowances  to  support  consulates  in  the  same  places.] 

-  At  twenty-one  of  the  consular  stations  which  by  this  bill  are 
abolished,  and  for  which  we  have  hitherto  been  paying  $32,500, 
and  by  cutting  off  which  we  save  the  same  sum,  —  at  those 
same  ports  Great  Britain  is  paying  $81,350  a  year  for  consular 
officers  to  keep  up  her  commercial  relations.  While  she  re 
ceives  a  total  of  only  $6,0 10,  she  pays  $81,350  a  year,  not  for 
the  sake  of  the  money  she  gets  back  now,  but  for  the  trade  in 
the  future,  for  keeping  up  commercial  relations  in  pursuance  of 
her  far-reaching  policy  as  a  great  commercial  nation.  And  yet 
to  save  $32,500  we  propose  to  abolish  at  a  blow  all  those  con 
sulates,  and  abandon  the  field  to  Great  Britain. 

MR.  RANDALL.  Does  the  gentleman  not  understand  what  is  the  law 
about  that,  —  that  wherever  a  consulate  such  as  we  have  disposed  of 
becomes  in  the  least  necessary,  the  law  gives  the  consul-general  the  right 
to  appoint  what  is  known  as  a  consular  agent,  who  takes  the  fees  ?  In 
no  instance  —  and  I  defy  the  gentleman  to  show  any  such  instance  — 
where  we  have  cut  off  these  consulates  have  we  in  the  least  degree  inter 
fered  with  the  commerce  of  the  country. 

I  think  my  friend  will  agree  with  me  that  it  would  be  far 
wiser  for  us  to  keep  that  interest  in  our  own  hands,  and  not  let 
it  be  delegated  to  a  step-mother,  under  no  special,  central, 
directing  control,  like  our  present  consular  system. 

But,  Mr.  Chairman,  the  general  statement  which  I  have  just 
made  is  not  sufficient.  I  want  to  apply  it  more  closely  to  our 
consular  relations  with  South  America.  Here  is  a  table  show 
ing  what  our  consular  service  at  the  several  countries  costs 

o 

us.  The  amount  is  $34,500;  we  get  back  from  the  same  coun 
tries  $36,942.83.  I  have  given  it  here  by  countries  and  by 
aggregates.  In  other  words,  we  receive  from  the  whole  of 


2 So         DIPLOMATIC  AND  CONSULAR  SERVICE. 

South  America  over  $2,000  a  year  more  than  the  service  costs 
us.  And  yet  in  these  very  South  American  countries  our 
friends  have  cut  down  almost  as  much  as  in  any  other  part. 
Some  of  those  consulates  pay  as  much  as  they  cost ;  some  less, 
some  more.  But  the  balance-sheet  for  South  America  is  in 
our  favor.  Shall  we  pick  out  some  of  the  consulates  that  do 
not  now  pay  in  our  present  depressed  condition,  and  blot  them 
out?  If  so,  we  abandon  all  hope  of  making  them  pay  in  the 
years  to  come. 

[Here  Mr.  Garfield  presented  a  memorandum  of  the  relative  cost  of 
the  consular  service  of  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  and  of  the 
amount  received  by  each  for  fees  in  several  South  American  States; 
viz.  the  Argentine  Republic,  Brazil,  Chili,  Colombia,  Ecuador,  Peru, 
Uruguay,  and  Venezuela.] 

From  this  table  we  see  that  Great  Britain  pays  $94,250  at  the 
same  consular  ports  in  South  America  where  we  pay  $34,500; 
and  she  gets  back  only  $23,270,  while  we  get  back  $36,942.83. 
She  expends  $70,980  a  year  at  these  ports  more  than  she  re 
ceives,  while  we  spend  less  than  we  receive  from  them.  And 
yet  our  friends  propose  to  cut  still  deeper  into  our  consular 
relations  with  South  America,  and  leave  the  field  to  Great  Brit 
ain.  I  cannot  believe  that,  when  gentlemen  reflect  upon  this 
from  a  business  point  of  view,  they  will  persist  in  this  course. 
Why,  sir,  the  great  business  houses  of  New  York  spend  more 
money  in  proportion  to  their  wealth  in  keeping  up  their  com 
mercial  relations  with  South  America,  and  with  the  ports  where 
they  trade,  than  the  United  States  spends.  Intelligent  selfish 
ness  would  do  more  than  is  here  proposed.  Let  us  be  as  intelli 
gent  at  least  as  the  ordinary  commercial  traders  of  our  cities. 

Turn  now  to  our  relations  with  Japan  and  China.  By  the 
addition  of  Alaska  to  our  domain,  we  have  established  relations 
most  important  for  our  commercial  future  with  those  two  great 
countries  of  Asia.  I  once  said  on  this  floor,  on  another  subject, 
that  it  seemed  to  me  just  to  say  that  at  all  eras  of  the  world 
civilization  has  been  grouped  around  some  one  sea  as  the  focal 
centre  of  its  life  and  activity.  Once  the  Mediterranean  Sea 
was  the  centre  of  the  civilization  of  the  world.  The  great 
empires  that  then  governed  mankind  had  their  home  and  seat 
on  its  shores.  After  a  lapse  of  centuries  the  human  race, 
leaving  ruined  empires  in  its  track,  turned  away  and  sought  a 
broader  theatre  than  the  Mediterranean.  The  Atlantic  became 


DIPLOMATIC  AND  CONSULAR  SERVICE.        281 

what  the  Mediterranean  had  been,  and  it  is  the  great  sea  of  to 
day.  But  if  there  be  anything  in  the  lessons  of  history,  the 
central  sea  of  the  future  will  be  still  grander ;  for  the  time  will 
yet  come  when  the  centre"  of  civilization  shall  be  shifted  to  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  and  our  republic,  holding  the  northern  half  of 
its  eastern  shore  and  reaching  out  an  arm  of  islands  a  thousand 
miles  to  the  northwest,  ought  to  be  the  arbiter  of  that  sea,  the 
controller  of  its  commerce,  and  the  chief  nation  that  inhabits 
its  shores.  For  that  reason  we  have  extended  commercial  rela 
tions,  have  opened  up  close  and  intimate  relations  of  commerce 
and  amity  with  China  and  Japan.  The  old  East  has  approached 
the  new  West,  and  we,  the  youngest  born  of  Time,  have  clasped 
hands  with  the  most  ancient  nations  of  the  world.  We  have 
sent  ministers  to  China  and  Japan;  we  have  sent  out  commer 
cial  agents  and  consuls  to  carry  on  our  business  with  those 
countries ;  and  now  we  send  them  from  our  mint  half  a  million 
a  week  of  coined  dollars  to  be  the  trade  dollars  of  Asia.  Now 
what  have  our  friends  of  the  Appropriation  Committee  done  in 
regard  to  our  relations  with  the  Japanese  and  Chinese  govern 
ments?  They  have  shorn  us  down  to  the  smallest  and  narrow 
est  proportions,  such  as  will  in  effect  drive  us  out  of  those 
countries  as  a  power.  Let  me  state  a  few  facts. 

In  Japan  the  United  States  pays  consular,  etc. 

salaries $14,500.00 

Received  consular  fees  (1873) 8,001.27 

£6,498.73 
Pays  diplomatic  salaries 17,000.00 

Total  payments • $23,498.73 

Great  Britain  pays  consular  salaries    ....  $67,285.00 
Received  no  fees. 

Pays  diplomatic  salaries    . 27,750.00 

Total  payments $95>O35.oo 

In  China  the  United  States  pays  consular  salaries  $43,200.00 

Received  fees  (1873) 20,848.12 

, $22,351.88 

Pays  diplomatic  salaries 17,000.00 

Total  payment $39,351.88 

Great  Britain  pays  consular  salaries     .     .     .      $255,535.00 
Received  no  fees  (1873). 

Pays  diplomatic  salaries 38,000.00 

Total  payments ~     ]     ]     ~  $293,535.00 


282        DIPLOMATIC  AND  CONSULAR  SERVICE. 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  England  pays  nearly  four 
hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year  and  receives  nothing,  and  yet 
our  friends  of  the  Appropriation  Committee  think  we  are  far 
too  extravagant.  They  can  make  a  little  fun  at  the  expense  of 
our  ministers,  by  talking  about  their  conversation  in  broken 
Chinese  with  the  Celestials,  and  they  seem  to  think  that  is 
enough  to  laugh  out  of  Congress  all  our  efforts  to  keep  up  our 
relations  with  that  great  nation  of  more  than  five  hundred 
million  people.  Gentlemen,  I  beg  of  you,  do  not  cripple  and 
utterly  ruin  this  young  and  growing  commerce  that  shall  bind 
Asia  to  the  United  States. 

Our  friends  of  the  Appropriation  Committee  seem  to  have 
adopted  the  rule  that,  when  they  have  any  doubt  about  an  ap 
propriation,  in  the  absence  of  any  definite  knowledge  as  to  how 
it  should  be  cut  down,  they  will  divide  it  by  two.  For  example  : 
the  contingent  expenses  of  our  foreign  and  diplomatic  service 
they  have  divided  by  two,  making  the  amount  $50,000,  instead 
of  $100,000  as  heretofore.  I  hold  in  my  hand  a  table,  prepared 
at  the  State  Department,  which  shows  the  total  contingent  ex 
penses  of  our  foreign  missions  and  foreign  intercourse  service 
since  1853.  The  table  shows,  among  other  things,  the  average 
contingent  expenses  of  foreign  missions  and  intercourse  per  year 
for  the  several  administrations  since  July  I,  1853.  The  sum 
maries  are  given  :  — 

Pierce,  1853-57 $109,810.67 

Buchanan,  1857-61 120,336.95 

Lincoln,  1861-65 132,283.75 

Johnson,  1865-69 140,731.69 

Grant,  1869-73 i°9>759-9i 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that,  during  the  last  twenty-four 
years,  the  average  expenditure  for  the  contingent  expenses  of 
foreign  missions  and  foreign  intercourse  has  been  considerably 
more  than  $100,000.  In  no  administration,  except  the  first 
term  of  General  Grant,  have  the  appropriations  been  brought 
down  to  the  average  of  $100,000  a  year.  Now,  the  average  of 
the  last  forty  years  has  not  been  as  low  as  $100,000;  yet  the 
Committee  on  Appropriations,  following  their  principle  of  di 
viding  by  two,  have  cut  down  this  contingent  item  to  $50,000. 
Sir,  it  exceeded  that  amount  fifty  years  ago,  and  has  never  been 
lower  than  that  since  the  time  of  Thomas  Jefferson.  Now, 


DIPLOMATIC  AND  CONSULAR   SERVICE.        283 

upon  what  principle  have  the  committee  acted?  Is  it  simple 
division,  to  save  labor,  or  what  is  it?  You  may  ask  the  Secre 
tary  of  State  to  furnish  you  the  exact  details  of  contingent 
expenses  for  any  year  for  the  last  half-century,  and  you  will 
find  that  the  sum  will  not  be  so  small  as  you  have  put  it  in 
this  bill. 

I  next  call  the  attention  of  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  to  the 
clause  found  in  lines  271  and  272  of  the  bill,  "  For  the  relief  and 
protection  of  American  seamen  in  foreign  countries,  $60,000." 
Now,  section  4577  of  the  Revised  Statutes  provides  that 

"  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  consuls,  vice-consuls,  commercial  agents, 
and  vice-commercial  agents,  from  time  to  time,  to  provide  for  the  sea 
men  of  the  United  States  who  may  be  found  destitute  within  their  dis 
tricts,  respectively,  sufficient  subsistence,  and  passages  to  some  port  in 
the  United  States,  in  the  most  reasonable  manner,  at  the  expense  of  the 
United  States,  subject  to  such  instructions  as  the  Secretary  of  State  shall 
give.  The  seamen  shall,  if  able,  be  bound  to  do  duty  on  board  the 
vessels  in  which  they  may  be  transported,  according  to  their  several 
abilities." 

The  consul  cannot  neglect  this  duty  without  violating  the 
law.  He  must  send  the  American  sailor  home.  Now,  the  ex 
perience  of  years  shows  that  from  $75,000  to  $150,000  a  year 
is  used  in  this  way,  and  that  we  cannot  get  along  with  less. 
I  remember  that,  two  years  ago  I  think  it  was,  we  had  to 
make  an  extra  appropriation  of  a  large  amount,  because  of  the 
wrecking  of  our  whaling  fleet  by  the  ice  in  the  Pacific.  I  have 
here  a  table  furnished  me  by  the  State  Department,  showing 
how  much  has  actually  been  expended  for  the  relief  of  Amer 
ican  seamen,  with  the  amounts  paid  for  transportation  to  the 
United  States  and  loss  by  exchange,  in  each  year  since  1861, 
by  which  it  is  seen  that  in  no  year  has  the  amount  been  so 
small  as  that  proposed  by  this  bill  for  this  purpose.  The 
range  is  from  $64,640.72,  in  1874,  to  $226,705.63,  in  1863. 
The  amount  expended  in  1872  for  relief  of  seamen  at  Hono 
lulu,  in  consequence  of  the  disasters  to  shipping  in  the  Pacific 
in  that  year,  was  $121,855.42.  The  total  average  for  fourteen 
years,  since  1861,  is  $125,000. 

Now,  if  you  appropriate  for  this  purpose  only  $60,000,  this 
will  be  the  result.  .When  the  $60,000  shall  have  been  ex 
hausted,  drafts  will  be  sent  in  from  all  parts  of  the  world  from 
which  American  seamen  are  sent  home;  and  of  course  they 


284         DIPLOMATIC  AND  CONSULAR  SERVICE. 

will  be  dishonored,  for  there  will  be  no  money  to  pay  them. 
There  may  be  a  hundred  little  drafts,  amounting  in  all  to  thirty 
or  forty  thousand  dollars,  from  twenty  different  countries,  sent  by 
our  consuls,  and  they  will  be  dishonored  simply  because  of  this 
unnecessary  effort  to  show  a  cutting  down  of  expenses.  There 
will  be  no  more  of  this  fund  used  than  is  called  for  under  the 
strict  letter  of  the  law.  Let  us  appropriate  enough  to  cover 
what  we  understand  to  be  the  fair  expectation  of  expenditures 
for  this  purpose.  If  it  is  not  all  used,  there  will  be  no  harm 
done.  It  is  true  the  Democratic  party  will  not  have  the  credit 
of  cutting  down  our  expenditures  by  a  few  thousand  dollars ; 
but  you  will  have  saved  American  seamen  from  distress,  and 
also  our  government  from  shame  and  protest.  Let  us  do  that. 

I  have  one  other  matter  to  refer  to,  and  that  is  a  very  small 
one.  It  has  been  our  custom  for  many  years  to  appropriate  a 
small  fund  with  which  to  pay  foreigners  who,  by  acts  of  gal 
lantry,  save  any  of  our  citizens  from  shipwreck.  Whenever 
some  gallant  English  or  French  sailor  has  leaped  into  the  sea 
and  rescued  an  American  seaman  from  death,  our  State  Depart 
ment  has  made  him  a  small  present,  it  may  be  a  chronometer,  a 
watch,  a  compass,  or  a  medal,  or  fifty  dollars  in  money,  with 
a  letter  of  recognition  of  his  courage.  During  the  last  forty 
years  about  $5,000  a  year  has  been  used,  and  never  has  the 
amount  gone  above  $7,500.  Now,  if  there  is  anything  in  the 
world  which  we  ought  to  keep  untouched,  it  is  that  little  appro 
priation  of  $5,000  for  this  worthy  purpose,  to  let  men  all  over 
the  world  know  that,  if  they  take  care  of  an  American  citizen, 
or  save  his  life,  they  will  have  the  thanks  of  the  United  States 
as  a  memorial  to  carry  with  them.  Now  the  committee  come 
to  that  estimate,  and,  following  their  new  rule,  divide  it  by  two, 
making  it  $2,500.  Why  should  they  higgle  about  a  matter 
like  this,  which,  though  small  in  amount,  is  in  its  relations  to  the 
world  and  to  our  honor  and  our  pride  a  great  and  important 
matter?  I  presume  the  provision  of  the  bill  on  this  point  is  an 
oversight;  I  do  not  think  anybody  would  make  such  a  reduc 
tion  except  as  the  result  of  oversight.  Let  it  be  corrected. 

I  have  here  a  table,  carefully  prepared  in  the  office  of  the 
Fifth  Auditor,  showing  how  much  the  great  nations  of  the 
world  —  France,  Russia,  Great  Britain,  Spain,  and  the  United 
States  —  expend  at  the  various  consular  ports  where  they  all 
have  consular  offices.  This  table  is  very  interesting,  for  it 


DIPLOMATIC  AND  CONSULAR  SERVICE.        285 

shows  at  a  glance  how  valuable  the  consular  service  is  sup 
posed  to  be  by  these  great  powers,  and  how  we  regard  it.  It 
is  a  little  mortifying  to  find  that  in  every  case  the  United  States 
is  away  down  at  the  foot  of  the  list,  even  right  at  our  very  doors, 
—  in  Cuba,  in  the  islands  of  the  Atlantic,  and  on  the  coasts 
of  South  America.  So  far  as  we  can  practise  economy  while 
doing  our  work  as  well  as  they,  let  us  practise  it;  but  I  trust 
that  this  bill  will  not  finally  be  put  in  such  a  shape  that  before 
the  nations  of  the  world  we  shall  be  ashamed  of  the  way  we  treat 
our  foreign  and  consular  service. 


ON  the  loth  of  December,  1878,  pending  the  Consular  and  Diplo 
matic  Appropriation  Bill  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1879,  Mr. 
Garfield  said,  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  :  — 

MR.  CHAIRMAN, —  So  far  as  I  have  studied  the  current  of 
public  thought  and  of  political  feeling  in  this  country,  no  feel 
ing  has  shown  itself  more  strongly  than  the  tendency  of  the 
public  mind  in  the  past  few  months.  The  man  who  attempts 
to  get  up  a  political  excitement  in  this  country  on  the  old  sec 
tional  issues  will  find  himself  without  a  party  and  without  sup 
port.  The  man  who  wants  to  serve  his  country  must  put 
himself  in  the  line  of  its  leading  thought,  and  that  is  the  res 
toration  of  business,  trade,  commerce,  industry,  sound  political 
economy,  honest  money,  and  honest  payment  of  all  obliga 
tions.  And  the  man  who  can  add  anything  in  the  direction 
of  the  accomplishment  of  any  of  these  purposes  is  a  public 
benefactor. 


HENRY   H.   STARKWEATHER. 

REMARKS   MADE  IN  THE   HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 

FEBRUARY  24,  1876. 


MR.  GARFIELD  made  the  following  remarks  while  these  resolutions 
were  pending  in  the  House  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  this  House  has  heard  with  deep  regret  the  announce 
ment  of  the  death  of  Henry  H.  Starkweather,  late  a  member  of  this 
House  from  the  State  of  Connecticut. 

"  Resolved,  That,  as  a  testimony  of  respect  to  the  memory  of  the  de 
ceased,  the  officers  and  members  of  the  House  will  wear  the  usual  badge 
of  mourning  for  thirty  days. 

"  Resolved,  That  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  be  transmitted  by  the 
Clerk  to  the  family  of  the  deceased. 

"  Resolved,  That,  as  a  further  mark  of  respect,  the  House  do  now 
adjourn. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  foregoing  resolutions  be  forthwith  transmitted  to 
the  Senate." 


MR.  SPEAKER,  —  In  some  respects  this  hall  is  the  coldest, 
the  most  isolated  place  in  which  the  human  heart  can 
find  a  temporary  residence.  We  are  in  the  service  of  distant 
constituencies,  each  of  us  representing  the  wishes  and  aspira 
tions  of  separate  communities,  people  with  whom  we  are  far 
more  closely  connected  than  with  each  other.  Few  of  us  have 
been  neighbors,  or  even  acquaintances.  We  are  here,  not  for 
each  other,  but  for  the  public ;  and  the  duties  of  our  temporary 
sojourn  are  such  as  necessarily  to  keep  us  isolated  from  each 
other.  I  have  often  been  saddened  by  the  thought  that  in  no 
place  where  my  life  has  been  cast  have  I  seen  so  much  neces 
sary  isolation  as  here.  True,  our  work  brings  us  together 
every  day ;  we  see  each  other's  faces ;  we  compare  opinions 


HENRY  H.  STARKWEATHER.  287 

upon  public  questions ;  we  divide,  combine,  clash,  agree,  attack, 
and  defend ;  but,  after  all,  this  life  is  a  wonderful  isolation. 
The  accidents  of  committee  service,  of  the  seats  we  may  occupy 
in  this  hall,  of  the  places  in  the  city  where  we  may  reside,  — 
all  these  frequently  determine  whether  we  shall  really  know 
much  or  little  of  each  other.  And  usually  it  is  difficult  without 
the  favorable  concurrence  of  these  accidents  for  two  busy  mem 
bers  of  this  House  to  become  very  intimately  acquainted  with 
each  other. 

Mr.  Starkweather  was  a  member  of  this  House  several  years 
before  I  could  say  that  I  had  any  intimate  acquaintance  with 
him.  It  was  only  when  our  duties  brought  us  together  upon 
the  same  committee  that  I  came  to  realize  how  much  I  had  lost 
in  the  four  years  during  which  he  had  been  a  member  of  this 
body.  Our  service  together  on  a  very  laborious  committee  gave 
me  unusual  opportunities  to  study  the  character  of  his  mind 
and  heart,  and  to  know  that,  in  the  best  meaning  of  the  words, 
he  was  a  true,  genuine,  manly  man.  Foremost  among  his  high 
qualities  was  his  unselfishness.  He  was  one  of  the  few  men  we 
meet,  in  this  ambitious  tussle  of  public  life,  who  are  willing 
to  take  up  a  difficult  and  tangled  subject,  patiently  work  it 
out,  and  put  his  results  into  the  common  fund  of  work  as 
cheerfully  and  faithfully  as  if  the  duties  and  honors  were  all  his 
own.  Without  complaining,  quietly,  patiently,  and  faithfully 
he  did  his  work,  finding  his  reward  in  the  consciousness  of  duty 
well  done. 

There  was  another  circumstance  that  enabled  us  to  know  more 
of  his  character  than  would  otherwise  have  been  possible.  I 
have  sometimes  thought  that  we  cannot  know  any  man  thor 
oughly  well  while  he  is  in  perfect  health.  As  the  ebb-tide  dis 
closes  the  real  lines  of  the  shore  and  bed  of  the  sea,  so  feebleness, 
sickness,  and  pain  bring  out  the  real  character  of  a  man.  Who 
knew  better  than  he  the  sacred  ministry  of  pain?  Who  fought 
more  bravely  for  life?  Who  struggled  more  courageously  to 
do  his  duty  uncomplainingly  and  appear  to  be  well?  I  have 
seen  him  in  the  committee-room  in  such  paroxysms  of  cough 
ing  that  it  seemed  he  must  die  in  his  chair.  Yet,  with  a  rare 
hopefulness  and  courage  that  rejected  help,  he  waved  his  friends 
off,  as  if  annoyed  that  they  should  notice  his  weakness.  Thus, 
for  years,  he  pushed  away  the  hand  that  was  reaching  for  his 
heart-strings,  and  bravely  worked  on  until  his  last  hour.  I  do 


288  HENRY  H.   STARKWEATHER. 

not  doubt  that  his  will  and  cheerful  courage  prolonged  his  life 
many  years. 

He  was  a  man  of  uncommon  soundness  of  judgment,  of  rare 
common  sense.  I  recently  heard  one  of  our  foremost  scholars 
and  thinkers  say  that,  of  all  the  men  who  had  made  the  most  en 
during  impress  upon  the  character  and  history  of  our  institutions, 
the  men  of  sound  judgment  had  done  vastly  more  for  us  than 
all  our  brilliant  men  had  accomplished.  He  noticed,  especially, 
the  example  of  Washington. 

Hamilton  was  the  master  of  a  brilliant  style,  —  clear  and  bold 
in  conception  and  decisive  in  execution;  Jefferson  was  pro 
foundly  imbued  with  a  philosophic  spirit,  —  could  formulate  the 
aspirations  of  a  brave  and  free  people  in  all  the  graces  of  power 
ful  rhetoric ;  and  other  master  minds  of  that  period  added  their 
great  and  valuable  contributions  to  the  common  stock;  but, 
whether  in  the  camp  or  in  the  cabinet,  the  quality  that  rose 
above  all  the  other  great  gifts  of  that  period  was  the  compre 
hensive  and  unerring  judgment  of  Washington.  It  was  that  all- 
embracing  sense,  that  calmness  of  solid  judgment,  that  made 
him  easily  chief;  not  only  the  first  man  of  his  ^age,  but  fore 
most  "  in  the  foremost  files  of  time." 

I  was  deeply  impressed  with  this  tribute  to  the  value  of  sound 
judgment,  of  saving  common  sense,  as  contrasted  with  the  more 
flashing  qualities  of  genius.  And  I  may  say  that  our  departed 
friend  was  girded  with  a  calm,  balanced  judgment,  that  made  him 
a  man  to  be  trusted  in  moments  of  doubt  and  difficulty.  I  have 
known  but  few  men  who  knew  so  perfectly  the  drift  and  current 
of  public  thought,  and  what  it  would  be  just  right  and  fitting 
and  wise  to  do.  It  was  this  which  made  Mr.  Starkweather  so 
valuable  a  member  of  the  committees  on  which  he  served.  They 
found  him  never  fickle,  always  wise,  never  extreme,  always 
steady,  having  the  courage  of  his  opinions  and  always  ready  to 
defend  them. 

He  had  one  experience  that  almost  every  man  must  have  be 
fore  his  character  can  be  fully  tested.  He  was  tried  in  the  fiery 
furnace  of  detraction  and  abuse.  I  remember  well,  in  that  pe 
riod  of  assault,  how  calmly,  how  modestly,  and  yet  how  bravely, 
he  bore  himself, —  without  bitterness,  without  shrinking, —  boldly 
meeting  all  assaults,  calmly  answering,  bearing  himself  through 
the  storm  like  a  genuine  man,  as  he  was.  That  was  the  test 
which  set  the  seal  of  character  and  gave  assurance  that  he 


HENRY  H.    STARKWEATHER.  289 

was  made  of  the  real  stuff  of  which  genuine,  heroic  men  are 
made. 

But,  after  all,  we  have  but  small  ground  to  judge  of  a  man's 
real  merits  here.  We  can  judge  of  many  qualities ;  but  if  we 
would  know  a  man's  heart  and  learn  how  the  foundations  of  his 
character  have  been  laid,  we  must  enter  that  circle  where  he  has 
been  known  from  his  youth,  and  in  which  his  life  has  been 
developed.  Well  as  I  knew  Mr.  Starkweather,  I  confess  that  I 
never  knew  until  we  bore  his  body  back  to  his  home,  and  saw 
his  neighbors  gathered  around  his  bier,  how  true,  how  tender, 
and  how  noble  a  soul  was  his. 

We  know  but  little  of  each  other  here.  Behind  this  public 
life  lies  a  world  of  history,  of  quiet,  beautiful  home-life,  within 
which  the  religious  opinions  and  sentiments  are  manifested,  —  a 
world  of  affection,  the  features  of  which  are  rarely  brought  out 
in  this  forum.  Who  of  us  knew  the  deep,  the  profound  religious 
life  of  our  departed  friend?  None  of  us  ever  saw  anything  in 
him  inconsistent  with  the  highest  religious  character;  but  who 
of  us  had  learned  that,  at  home,  in  the  circle  of  his  family  and 
his  church,  he  was  a  steady,  clear  light,  illuminating  the  whole 
circle  in  which  he  moved,  and  filling  with  the  radiance  of  a 
sweet  and  beautiful  religious  life  the  hearts  of  all  who  knew  him. 
On  the  evening  of  his  very  last  day  at  home,  only  a  month  be 
fore  he  came  here  to  die,  he  spoke  in  his  own  church,  in  a  quiet 
social  gathering,  such  words  as  we  found  were  echoing  and 
trembling  in  the  stricken  hearts  of  those  who  came  to  follow 
his  bier. 

There  was  no  religious  cant  in  this  man,  —  no  ostentatious 
parade  of  piety.  It  was  with  him,  as  he  said  of  Senator  Ferry, 
not  a  sentiment  merely,  but  a  controlling  force,  that  lighted  his 
pathway  and  moulded  his  whole  life.  And  it  was  this  that 
bowed  my  soul  in  reverence  and  love  as  I  stood  beside  his 
grave.  I  believe  we  may  say,  in  every  good  sense  of  the  word, 
that  his  life  has  been  a  noble  and  worthy  success,  —  a  life  that 
we  ought  to  remember  for  our  own  sakes  and  for  the  sake  of 
our  country,  —  a  life  that  those  who  knew  him  can  never 
forget. 

VOL.    II.  19 


ALMEDA  A.   BOOTH: 

HER    LIFE    AND     CHARACTER. 

ADDRESS   DELIVERED   AT   HIRAM   COLLEGE,   HIRAM,   OHIO, 

JUNE  22,  I876.1 


"  The  crown  and  head, 
The  stately  flower  of  female  fortitude." 

MR.  PRESIDENT,  —  You  have  called  me  to  a  duty  at  once 
most  sad  and  most  sacred.  At  every  step  of  my  prepa 
ration  for  its  performance,  I  have  encountered  troops  of  throng 
ing  memories,  that  swept  across  the  field  of  the  last  twenty-five 
years  of  my  life,  and  so  filled  my  heart  with  the  lights  and 
shadows  of  their  joy  and  sorrow,  that  I  have  hardly  been  able 
to  marshal  them  into  order,  or  give  them  coherent  voice.  I 
have  lived  over  again  the  life  of  this  place.  I  have  seen  again 
the  groups  of  young  and  joyous  students  ascending  these  green 
slopes,  dwelling  for  a  time  on  this  peaceful  height  in  happy  and 
workful  companionship,  and  then,  with  firmer  step  and  with 
more  serious  and  thoughtful  faces,  marching  away  to  their  posts 
in  the  battle  of  life.  And  still  nearer  and  clearer  have  come 
back  the  memories  of  that  smaller  band  of  friends,  the  leaders 
and  guides  of  those  who  encamped  on  this  training-ground.  On 
my  journey  to  this  assembly  it  has  seemed  that  they,  too,  were 
coming,  and  that  here  I  should  once  more  meet  and  greet  them. 
And  I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  realize  that  Almeda  Booth 
will  not  be  with  us. 

After  our  great  loss,  how  shall  we  gather  up  the  fragments  of 
the  life  we  lived  in  this  place?  We  are  mariners,  treading  the 

1  The  following  is  Mr.  Garfield's  dedication  of  this  Address :  "  To  the  thousands 
of  noble  men  and  women  whose  generous  ambition  was  awakened,  whose  early  cul 
ture  was  guided,  and  whose  lives  have  been  made  nobler,  by  the  thoroughness  of 
her  instruction,  by  the  wisdom  of  her  counsel,  by  the  faithfulness  of  her  friendship, 
and  the  purity  of  her  life,  this  tribute  to  the  memory  of  Almeda  A.  Booth  is  affec 
tionately  dedicated." 


ALMEDA   A.  BOOTH.  291 

lonely  shore  in  search  of  our  surviving  comrades  and  the  frag 
ments  of  our  good  ship,  wrecked  by  the  tempest.  To  her, 
indeed  it  is  no  wreck.  She  has  landed  in  safety,  and  ascended 
the  immortal  heights  beyond  our  vision.  What  manner  of 
woman  she  was,  by  what  steps  and  through  what  struggles 
her  character  was  developed,  to  what  ends  her  life  was  directed, 
what  she  accomplished  for  herself  and  for  us,  and  what  rich 
fruitage  may  be  gathered  from  the  trees  of  her  planting,  I 
shall  attempt  to  portray  as  best  I  can. 

We  can  study  no  life  intelligently  except  in  its  relations  to 
causes  and  results.  Character  is  the  chief  element,  for  it  is  both 
a  result  and  a  cause,  —  the  result  of  all  the  elements  and  forces 
that  combined  to  form  it,  and  the  chief  cause  of  all  that  is  ac 
complished  by  its  possessor. 

Who,  then,  was  Almeda  Ann  Booth?  and  what  were  the  ele 
ments  and  forces  that  formed  her  character  and  guided  her  life? 

Every  character  is  the  joint  product  of  nature  and  nurture. 
By  the  first,  we  mean  those  inborn  qualities  of  body  and  mind 
inherited  from  parents,  or,  rather,  from  a  long  line  of  ancestors. 
Who  shall  estimate  the  effect  of  those  latent  forces  infolded  in 
the  spirit  of  a  new-born  child,  which  may  date  back  centuries, 
and  find  their  origin  in  the  unwritten  history  of  remote  ances 
tors, —  forces,  the  germs  of  which,  enveloped  in  the  solemn  mys 
tery  of  life,  have  been  transmitted  silently  from  generation  to 
generation,  and  never  perish?  All-cherishing  Nature,  provident 
and  unforgetting,  gathers  up  all  these  fragments,  that  nothing 
may  be  lost,  but  that  all  may  reappear  in  new  combinations. 
Each  new  life  is  thus  the  "  heir  of  all  the  ages,"  the  possessor  of 
qualities  which  only  the  events  of  life  can  unfold.  By  the  second 
element — nurture,  or  culture  —  we  designate  all  those  influ 
ences  which  act  upon  this  initial  force  of  character  to  retard  or 
strengthen  its  development.  There  has  been  much  discussion 
to  determine  which  of  these  elements  plays  the  more  important 
part  in  the  formation  of  character.  The  truth  doubtless  is, 
that  sometimes  the  one  and  sometimes  the  other  is  the  greater 
force ;  but,  so  far  as  life  and  character  are  dependent  upon  vol 
untary  action,  the  second  is  no  doubt  the  element  of  chief  im 
portance. 

Not  enough  attention  has  been  paid  to  the  marked  difference 
between  the  situation  and  possibilities  of  a  life  developed  here 
in  the  West  during  the  first  half  of  the  present  century,  and 


2Q2 


ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH. 


those  of  a  life  nurtured  and  cultivated  in  an  old  and  settled 
community  like  that  of  New  England.  Consider,  for  example, 
the  measureless  difference  between  the  early  surroundings  of 
John  Ouincy  Adams  and  Abraham  Lincoln.  Both  were  pos 
sessed  of  great  natural  endowments.  Adams  was  blessed  with 
parents  whose  native  force  of  character  and  whose  vigorous  and 
thorough  culture  have  never  been  surpassed  by  any  married 
pair  in  America.  Young  Adams  was  thoroughly  taught  by  his 
mother  until  he  had  completed  his  tenth  year;  and  then,  accom 
panying  his  father  to  France,  he  spent  two  years  in  a  training- 
school  at  Paris,  and  three  years  in  the  University  at  Leyden. 
After  two  years  of  diplomatic  service  under  the  skilful  guidance 
of  his  father's  hand,  he  returned  to  America,  and  devoted  three 
years  to  study  at  Harvard,  where  he  was  graduated  at  the  age 
of  twenty-one ;  and  three  years  later  was  graduated  in  the  law 
under  the  foremost  jurist  of  his  time.  With  such  parentage  and 
such  opportunities,  who  can  wonder  that,  by  the  time  he  reached 
the  meridian  of  his  life,  he  was  a  man  of  immense  erudition,  and 
had  honored  every  great  office  in  the  gift  of  his  country? 

How  startling  the  contrast  in  every  particular,  between  Adams's 
early  life  and  that  of  Abraham  Lincoln  !  The  facts  concerning 
the  latter  are  too  well  known  to  require  a  statement.  Born  to 
an  inheritance  of  the  extremest  poverty,  wholly  unaided  by 
his  parents,  surrounded  by  the  rude  forces  of  the  wilderness, 
only  one  year  in  any  school,  never  for  a  day  master  of  his  own 
time  until  he  reached  his  majority,  forcing  his  way  to  the  pro 
fession  of  the  law  by  the  hardest  and  roughest  road,  and  begin 
ning  its  practice  at  twenty-eight  years  of  age,  yet  by  the  force 
of  unconquerable  will  and  persistent  hard  work  he  attained  a 
foremost  place  in  his  profession. 

Who  can  tell  what  the  results  might  have  been  if  the  situa 
tions  of  these  two  men  had  been  reversed?  It  is  often  remarked, 
as  ground  of  encouragement  to  young  men,  that  just  such  strug 
gles  as  these  in  which  Lincoln  engaged  are  necessary  to  bring 
out  the  native  force  of  character,  and  produce  great  results ; 
and  no  doubt  this  is  partly  true.  But  where  one  succeeds 
under  such  circumstances,  how  many  thousands  fail ! 

Our  people  frequently  refer  with  pride  to  the  exceptionally 
prominent  place  which  Ohio  has  taken  in  all  the  walks  of  public 
and  professional  life  during  the  last  twenty  years.  That  promi 
nence  is  probably  due  to  the  fact,  that  those  citizens  of  Ohio 


ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH.  293 

who  have  been  leaders  of  their  generation  during  the  last  twenty 
years  are  the  first-born  of  the  pioneer  founders  of  our  State. 
The  inspirations  of  the  Revolution  were  still  acting  in  full  vigor 
upon  the  people  of  the  original  thirteen  States  when  the  settle 
ment  of  Ohio  began.  By  the  law  of  natural  selection,  only 
those  became  pioneers  who  were  best  fitted  by  natural  energy 
and  force  of  character  to  conquer  the  difficulties  attending  such 
a  career;  and  their  children  have  not  only  inherited  a  part  of 
that  energy,  but  have  enjoyed  means  of  culture  which  were  far 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  pioneers  themselves.  In  old  and  set 
tled  communities  we  find  more  culture;  in  pioneer  life,  more 
force.  And  it  will  doubtless  prove  true  that,  in  succeding  gen 
erations,  Ohio  will  produce  a  higher  type  of  scholars,  —  men  of 
arts  and  letters ;  but  it  is  also  probable  that  they  will  lose  in 
rugged  force  a  part  at  least  of  what  they  gain  in  culture. 

Striking  as  was  the  difference  between  the  two  examples  re 
ferred  to,  the  contrast  of  such  conditions  is  still  greater  when 
applied  to  the  possibilities  of  the  culture  and  development  of 
woman.  Man  is  better  fitted  for  a  rough  struggle  with  rude 
elements.  His  is  a  coarser  fibre,  his  "  the  wrestling  thews  that 
throw  the  world." 

"  Iron-jointed,  supple-sinewed,  they  shall  dive,  and  they  shall  run, 
Catch  the  wild  goat  by  the  hair,  and  hurl  their  lances  in  the  sun." 

But  woman's  nature  is  of  a  finer  fibre,  —  her  spirit  attuned  to 
higher  harmonies.  "  All  dipped  in  angel-instincts,"  she  craves 
more  keenly  than  man  the  celestial  food,  —  the  highest  culture 
which  earth  and  heaven  can  give ;  and  her  loss  is  far  greater 
than  his  when  she  is  deprived  of  those  means  of  culture  so 
rarely  found  in  pioneer  life.  Success  in  intellectual  pursuits, 
under  such  conditions,  is  the  strongest  possible  test  of  her  char 
acter. 

With  these  general  reflections  as  guides  to  the  study  of  the 
life  we  have  met  to  commemorate,  let  us  inquire  what  were  the 
elements  and  conditions  out  of  which  that  life  grew. 

Almeda  Ann  Booth  was  a  child  of  the  pioneers,  and  of  hardy 
New  England  stock.  Her  father,  Ezra  Booth,  was  born  near 
the  Housatonic  •  River,  in  Newton,  Fairfield  County,  Conn., 
February  ^4,  1792;  and  her  mother,  Dorcas  Taylor,  was  born 
in  Great  Barrington,  Mass.,  June  30,  1800.  Both  were  swept 
westward,  in  early  childhood,  by  that  tide  of  emigration  which, 
in  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  began  to  people  the 


294  ALMEDA  A.   BOOTH. 

wilderness  of  Northeastern  Ohio.  The  precise  date  at  which 
Ezra  Booth  came  to  the  West,  I  have  not  ascertained.  The 
parents  of  Dorcas  Taylor  came  in  1813,  and  found  a  home  in 
the  woods  of  Nelson,  Portage  County. 

As  we  know  the  Western  Reserve  to-day,  with  its  350,000 
people,  its  growing  cities,  its  vast  industries,  and  its  thousands 
of  comfortable  and  elegant  homes,  we  can  hardly  realize  what  it 
was  when  the  parents  of  Miss  Booth  firsfr  saw  it.  At  the  begin 
ning  of  the  century  it  was  an  unbroken  wilderness,  with  but 
1,302  white  inhabitants.  Indeed,  in  1810  the  whole  number  of 
white  inhabitants  within  the  present  limits  of  Portage  County 
was  considerably  less  than  the  population  of  Hiram  to-day. 
Between  1810  and  1830,  17,000  pioneers  had  settled  in  this 
county,  and  70,000  had  found  homes  in  the  Western  Reserve. 
They  brought  with  them  little  wealth,  and  few  of  the  comforts 
of  life.  Patient  and  courageous  toil  was  the  first  necessity  of 
the  men  and  women  who  transformed  that  wilderness  into  the 
beautiful  and  happy  homes  inherited  by  their  children.  But  the 
pioneers  did  not  forget  the  faith  and  traditions  of  their  fathers. 
While  building  their  homes,  they  planted  also  the  school  and 
the  church,  and  thus  laid  deep  and  strong  the  foundations  of 
prosperity. 

In  the  midst  of  such  stirring  scenes,  Ezra  Booth  began  his 
career.  He  was  a  man  of  more  than  ordinary  powers  of  mind, 
—  gentle,  affectionate,  impressible,  and  deeply  religious.  His 
early  intellectual  training  did  not  go  beyond  the  rudiments 
taught  in  the  common  schools  of  Connecticut;  but  he  was  an 
inveterate  reader  of  books,  and  the  armful  of  choice  volumes 
that  lay  on  the  shelves  of  his  little  library  was  probably  a  greater 
number  than  could  have  been  found  in  one  house  out  of  every 
thousand  on  the  Reserve.  Possessed  of  slender  means,  he 
adopted  a  profession  which  rendered  the  acquirement  of  wealth 
wellnigh  impossible.  He  early  entered  the  ministry  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  was  assigned  to  a  circuit  of 
nearly  a  thousand  miles,  embracing  in  its  range  the  township  of 
Nelson  ;  and  there,  in  1819,  he  married  Dorcas  Taylor,  and  fixed- 
his  home.  Soon  after  entering  the  ministry,  he  sent  eleven 
silver  dollars  to  England  to  purchase  a  Greek  lexicon ;  and  he 
so  far  mastered  the  language  as  to  read  the  Greek  Testament 
with  ease.  He  used  to  say  that,  in  the  early  days  of  his  min 
istry,  he  and  a  Mr.  Charles  Elliott  were  the  only  Methodist 


ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH.  295 

preachers  west  of  the  Alleghanies  who  were  able  to  read 
Greek. 

In  a  small  frame  house  about  three  and  a  half  miles  eastward 
from  this  place,  on  the  farm  now  owned  by  Mr.  Ferris  Couch, 
Almeda,  the  only  child  of  Ezra  and  Dorcas  Booth,  was  born, 
on  the  1 5th  of  August,  1823.  She  inherited  a  hardy  and  vig 
orous  constitution,  a  clear  and  powerful  intellect,  and  a  spirit 
of  remarkable  sweetness  and  gentleness.  These  qualities  of 
mind  and  heart  shone  with  clear  and  steady  light  from  early 
childhood  until  her  last  hour.  Her  life  appears  to  fall  into  three 
very  distinct  periods,  separated  from  each  other  by  marked 
events.  Indeed,  she  may  be  said  to  have  lived  three  separate 
lives.  These  will  appear  as  we  review  her  history. 

Her  first  twelve  years  were  passed  in  Nelson.  All  the  tra 
ditions  that  have  come  to  us  from  that  period  are  redolent  of 
the  fragrance  of  a  sweet  and  loving  childhood.  In  her  fourth 
year  she  attended  the  district  school  at  Nelson  Centre,  a  mile 
and  a  half  distant  from  her  home.  The  school  was  taught  at 
that  time  by  Miss  Jane  Hopkins,  afterwards  Mrs.  Nathan  Wads- 
worth.  How  long  she  continued  with  this  teacher  I  have  not 
learned ;  but  at  the  close  of  Miss  Hopkins's  school  Almeda 
received  a  locket,  the  prize  for  making  the  greatest  progress  in 
spelling.  Miss  Clarissa  Colton  was  also  her  teacher  in  Nelson 
for  several  terms,  and  was  remembered  with  great  affection  in 
after  years.  I  have  not  been  able  to  learn  the  names  of  her 
other  teachers  in  that  place.  The  honored  President  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees  of  this  College,  who  saw  her  frequently  when 
she  was  a  little  child,  tells  us  this  pleasing  and  characteristic 
incident. 

When  Almeda  was  about  twelve  years  of  age,  she  used  to 
puzzle  her  teachers  with  questions,  and  distress  them  by  correct 
ing  their  mistakes  ;  and  one  of  them  (a  male  teacher,  of  course), 
who  was  too  proud  to  acknowledge  the  corrections  of  a  child, 
called  upon  Mr.  Udall,  the  President,  for  help  and  advice  in  re 
gard  to  a  point  in  dispute  between  them.  Mr.  Udall  told  him 
he  was  evidently  in  error,  and  must  acknowledge  his  mistake. 
The  teacher  was  manly  enough  to  follow  this  wise  advice,  and 
thereafter  made  the  little  girl  his  friend  and  helper  in  the  scho 
lastic  difficulties  which  he  encountered.  It  was  like  her  to  help 
him  quietly,  and  without  boasting.  During  her  whole  life,  what 
one  of  her  friends  ever  heard  an  intimation  from  her  that  she 


296  ALMEDA  A.  BOOTH. 

had  ever  achieved  an  intellectual  triumph  over  anybody  in  the 
world  ? 

In  1835  ner  family  removed  to  Mantua,  about  four  miles  to 
the  northwest  of  this  place,  where  they  resided  for  more  than 
thirty  years.  Her  progress  had  been  so  great  under  the  in 
struction  of  her  favorite  teacher,  Miss  Colton,  that  her  parents 
induced  that  young  lady  also  to  remove  to  Mantua.  Almeda's 
progress  as  a  scholar  was  continuous  and  rapid.  Dr.  Squire, 
who  knew  her  well  from  the  time  she  first  attended  the  district 
school  at  Mantua,  in  the  winter  of  1835-36,  tells  us  that  "she 
was  known  as  a  thorough  scholar,  the  best  speller  in  the  dis 
trict,  and,  though  dressed  in  the  plainest  style  possible,  was  the 
pride  of  the  neighborhood  for  her  youthful  attainments  and 
gentleness."  Hon.  A.  G.  Riddle,  who  knew  her  as  a  child  in 
Mantua,  has  drawn  this  charming  picture:  — 

"  You  ask  me  for  my  recollections  of  Almeda  Booth.  What  I  can 
recall  of  her  associates  her  with  a  single  spring  and  summer,  —  idyllic, 
as  one  long  day  of  green  foliage,  apple  blossoms,  humming  bees,  and 
sunshine,  coming  from  nothing  which  preceded,  and  connected  with 
nothing  which  followed. 

"There  was  a  beautiful,  secluded  neighborhood  in  the  northeastern  part 
of  Mantua,  where  two  little  travelled  highways  crossed. '  In  the  northwest 
angle  thus  formed  stood  the  farmhouse,  the  homestead  of.  Deacon  Seth 
Harmon,  my  home  at  that  time.  The  east  and  west  road  in  its  front  was 
filled  with  cherry-trees.  South  of  this  highway  stood  a  grand  old  and 
quite  extensive  apple  orchard,  over  the  tops  of  which,  and  two  or  three 
hundred  yards  away,  embowered  in  fruit  and  forest  trees,  could  be  seen 
the  roof  of  Almeda's  home.  A  winding  footpath  led  down  from  it  to  the 
road  in  front  of  the  Harmon  homestead. 

"  I  knew  Almeda  as  an  only  child,  —  a  maiden  of  twelve  or  thirteen 
years,  well  grown,  ruddy-cheeked,  and  buxom.  Martha  Harmon,  dark 
and  slight,  was  of  about  the  same  age.  They  were  quite  constant  com 
panions. 

"  About  the  Harmon  house  and  grounds,  in  the  highway,  along  that 
footpath,  through  the  orchard,  amid  falling  apple  blossoms  and  hum 
ming  bees,  I  can  see  and  hear  these  two  laughing,  light-hearted  girls  ; 
and  that  is  all.  I  can  connect  them  with  no  incident,  or  any  certain 
time. 

"  I  have  a  sort  of  an  impression,  and  only  that,  of  attending  a  winter 
school  with  Almeda. 

"  She  must  have  had  the  power  of  fixing  herself  well  in  one's  memory. 
I  did  not  see  her  again  for  ten  years,  and  knew  her  at  once ;  and  I  recall 


ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH.  297 

the  lively  satisfaction  I  felt  at  being  remembered  by  her.  Through  all 
the  years  since,  I  have  been  familiar  with  her  name,  though  meeting  her 
but  seldom." 

There  must  necessarily  be  much  loneliness  in  the  life  of  an 
only  child.  That  Almeda  felt  this  is  evident  from  one  of  her 
early  essays  which  has  been  preserved,  and  in  which  she  says, 
"  I  am  one  of  those  unfortunate  beings  whom  Mrs.  Sigourney 
so  much  pities,  —  a  person  destitute  of  brothers  and  sisters." 
And  yet,  for  a  thoughtful  child,  such  a  life  had  its  compensa 
tions.  She  found  early  and  sweet  companionship  with  her 
father  in  his  studies,  and,  like  him,  became  an  ardent  lover  of 
books.  At  that  period  few  juvenile  books  were  published  ;  and 
the  stirring  works  of  legend  and  romance  rarely  found  their  way 
to  the  shelves  of  a  preacher's  library.  The  extent  and  charac 
ter  of  her  early  reading  I  have  not  learned ;  but  she  once  told 
me  that  she  read  Rollin's  Ancient  History  and  Gibbon's  "  De 
cline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire "  when  she  was  twelve 
years  of  age.  I  doubt  if,  at  so  early  an  age,  any  person  in  this 
assembly  had  done  as  much.  At  the  age  of  fourteen  she  had 
pretty  thoroughly  mastered  the  studies  then  taught  in  the  dis 
trict  school ;  and,  for  a  short  time,  she  attended  a  select  school 
in  Painesville,  boarding  at  the  house  of  a  Rev.  Mr.  Winans. 

When  she  was  seventeen,  she  taught  her  first  school,  in  a  log 
schoolhouse,  near  her  home  in  Mantua.  She  next  engaged  to 
teach,  for  five  months,  the  school  near  what  was  known  as  the 
"  Brick  Tavern,"  south  of  Mantua  Centre.  There,  as  in  her  first 
school,  she  was  very  popular;  but  she  became  homesick,  and  by 
the  aid  of  friends  secured  a  change  in  the  contract,  by  which  the 
term  was  shortened  to  three  months.  She  greatly  disliked  the 
custom  of  that  time,  which  required  her  to  "  board  around  the 
district";  because  it  resulted  in  such  a  waste  of  her  time,  and 
cut  her  off  from  the  opportunity  of  reading  which  she  so  highly 
prized.  But  she  conquered  all  the  discomforts  of  the  work,  and 
continued  to  teach,  using  for  the  advancement  of  her  own  cul 
ture  the  pittance  then  paid  to  a  woman  teacher,  which  some 
times  did  not  exceed  four  dollars  per  month. 

In  1842  and  1843  she  attended  during  several  terms  the  As- 
bury  Seminary,  at  Chagrin  Falls,  which  at  that  time  was  under 
the  charge  of  L.  D.  Williams,  who  was  afterwards  a  distin 
guished  Professor  in  Meadville  College.  In  later  years  she 
frequently  spoke  of  him  in  terms  of  the  highest  respect  and 


298  ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH. 

reverence.  I  have  not  been  able  to  learn  the  range  of  her 
studies  at  Chagrin  Falls ;  but  she  has  left  a  small  package  of 
essays,  written  as  school  exercises  while  there,  which  exhibit 
that  clearness  and  masterful  force  of  expression  so  character 
istic  of  her  style  in  later  years.  The  penmanship  bears  a  few 
traces  of  the  formal  schoolgirl  hand,  especially  in  the  construc 
tion  of  the  capital  letters ;  but  it  also  shows  the  outline  of  that 
elegant  and  graceful  chirography  with  which  we  are  now  so 
familiar.  The  brief  marginal  notes  and  criticisms  of  her  instruc 
tors  indicate  the  pride  and  satisfaction  they  felt  in  her  develop 
ment.  One  of  these  notes  is  signed  "  Mattison"  ;  another,  "  H. 
H.  Moore  "  ;  and  another  is  in  these  words :  "  Very  good.  The 
errors  are  few,  and  none  of  them  bad  ones.  L.  D.  W."  (evi 
dently  L.  D.  Williams).  I  have  read  these  short  essays  with  a 
deep  and  mournful  interest.  Though  written  as  formal  school 
exercises,  they  are  charming  pictures  of  the  progress  of  her 
mind  and  the  genuine  earnestness  of  her  convictions.  To  quote 
them  here,  however,  would  be  unjust  to  her  maturer  fame. 
Among  them  is  a  dialogue,  in  her  handwriting,  between  herself 
and  Miss  Elizabeth  Hayden,  daughter  of  the  late  Rev.  William 
Hay  den.  Even  at  that  early  age,  Miss  Booth  exhibited  unusual 
aptitude  for  that  species  of  dramatic  composition  in  which  she 
subsequently  developed  so  much  power. 

Until  she  reached  the  age  of  twenty-four,  her  life  had  been 
devoted  to  home  duties,  to  study,  and  teaching.  In  the  family 
of  her  nearest  neighbor,  she  had  formed  the  intimate  acquaint 
ance  of  Martyn  Harmon,  a  young  man  of  rare  and  brilliant 
promise.  Like  herself,  he  was  an  enthusiastic  student.  Am 
bitious  of  culture,  he  had  pushed  his  way  through  the  studies  of 
Meadville  College,  and  was  graduated  with  honor.  He  had 
given  Almeda  his  love,  and  received  in  return  the  rich  gift  of 
her  great  heart.  The  day  of  their  wedding  had  been  fixed.  He 
was  away  in  Kentucky  teaching ;  while  she  was  in  Mantua  pre 
paring  to  adorn  and  bless  the  home  of  their  love.  On  the  6th 
of  March,  1848,  he  died  of  some  sudden  illness,  and  was  buried 
near  Frankfort,  Kentucky.  Funeral  services  were  held  in  Man 
tua,  at  which  Almeda  took  her  place  as  chief  mourner.  Her 
plans  of  life  and  the  hopes  of  her  earthly  future  seemed  buried 
in  his  grave. 

This  event  closes  the  first  period  of  her  history.  It  seemed 
for  a  time  to  end  her  ambition  and  her  hopes.  Her  heart  was 


ALMEDA   A.    BOOTH. 


299 


wedded  by  ties  as  sacred  as  any  which  marriage  can  consecrate. 
From  that  time  forward  she  walked  alone  in  the  solitude  of  vir 
gin  widowhood.  In  her  subsequent  life  she  rarely  spoke  of  the 
suffering  of  that  period ;  but  she  never  ceased  to  cherish  the 
memory  of  Martyn  Harmon,  as  that  of  an  immortal  husband 
who  awaited  her  coming  in  the  life  beyond.  Her  faithfuless  to 
him  excluded  the  thought  of  marriage  with  any  other. 

After  such  a  loss,  what  was  left  to  a  soul  like  hers?  To  her 
heart,  the  consolations  of  the  Christian  faith ;  and  to  her  life, 
the  power  of  serving  and  blessing  others.  It  is  one  of  the  pre 
cious  mysteries  of  sorrow,  that  it  finds  solace  in  unselfish  work. 
Patient  and  uncomplaining,  with  a  spirit  chastened  and  sweet 
ened  by  her  great  sorrow,  Almeda  gathered  up  the  fragments 
of  her  broken  life,  and  devoted  her  powers  to  the  work  of 
teaching. 

Making  her  father's  home  the  centre  of  her  activities,  she 
commenced  teaching  in  the  most  difficult  and  unpromising 
school-districts  in  her  neighborhood.  Her  success  was  such 
as  few  teachers  in  a  similar  field  have  ever  achieved.  She  found 
happiness  in  her  work,  and  was  rewarded  with  the  admiration 
and  love  of  those  whose  minds  were  moulded  and  guided  by 
her  influence.  Besides  this,  she  found  solace  and  strength  in 
her  old  habit  of  reading.  Her  spirit,  ranging  beyond  the  nar 
row  circle  of  her  every-day  life,  found  in  books  a  noble  com 
panionship  with  the  good  and  great  of  other  days.  I  find 
among  her  papers  a  few  pages  of  personal  reminiscences,  writ 
ten  twenty-one  years  ago,  which  probably  refer  to  the  period 
of  her  life  of  which  I  am  now  speaking.  I  am  sure  her  friends 
will  listen  to  her  own  words  with  more  pleasure  than  to  any 
thing  that  I  can  say.  She  writes :  — 

"  Through  the  mists  and  clouds  of  later  life,  remembrance  brings  a 
warm  glow  to  our  hearts,  as  we  think  of  the  friends  we  loved,  and  the 
books  we  read.  Yes,  the  books  !  Who  has  not  some  old,  torn,  dingy 
favorite  of  a  book,  that  he  remembers  with  more  affection  than  any  vol 
ume  he  has  seen  for  many  a  year  ?  I  remember  one  that  to  me,  in  those 
years,  was  a  source  of  never-failing  delight.  I  fondly  cherish  the  mem 
ory  of  that  old  book,  both  for  itself  and  its  pleasant  associations.  I 
chanced  to  find  it  in  a  family  where  I  was  allowed  to  visit,  into  whose 
possession  it  had  come  in  payment  of  a  debt  for  which  nothing  else 
could  be  obtained.  It  was  a  bound  volume  of  a  periodical  that  had 
been  started  in  Philadelphia  by  some  lover  of  literature  who  mistook  the 


300  ALMEDA   A.  BOOTH. 

tastes  of  the  age ;  and  his  magazine  soon  failed  for  want  of  patronage. 
It  had  been  bound ;  but  when  I  was  so  happy  as  to  make  its  acquaint 
ance,  its  leaves  had  escaped  from  their  confinement,  causing  me  no 
little  trouble  as  I  turned  over  the  unwieldy  mass.  It  contained  no 
original  matter,  but  choice  selections  from  English  and  American  litera 
ture.  Here  I  first  read  '  L'  Allegro  '  and  *  II  Penseroso  ' ;  and,  though  I 
was  delighted  with  the 

'  Goddess  fair  and  free, 
In  heaven  ycleped  Euphrosyne, 
And  by  men  heart-easing  Mirth,' 

yet  by  the  time  I  had  read  through  to 

'  These  pleasures,  Melancholy,  give, 
And  I  with  thee  will  choose  to  live,' 

I  usually  felt  like  giving  in  my  adhesion  to  the  'goddess  sage  and  holy.' 
There,  too,  I  read  '  Mazeppa,'  —  that  wild  ride  related 

'  After  dread  Pultowa's  day, 
When  fortune  left  the  royal  Swede,'  — 

and  I  could  never  understand  how,  when  't  was  done,  the  king  could 
have  been  '  an  hour  asleep.'  There  were  Mackenzie's  '  Man  of  Feeling ' ; 
Goldsmith's  simple,  natural,  and  inimitable  '  Vicar  of  Wakefield ' ;  also, 
those  stories  of  exquisite  beauty  and  pathos,  *  The  Lights  and  Shadows 
of  Scottish  Life.'  And  there  I  first  found  the  letters  of  our  own  Dr. 
Franklin,  and  his  life,  written  by  himself,  for  his  son,  which  I  could  never 
sufficiently  admire  :  it  seemed  so  truthful  and  honest,  as  he  related  the 
indiscretions  of  his  early  years,  and  remembered  his  errors,  one  by  one. 
But  I  read  nothing  in  that  book  with  more  thrilling  interest  than  the  old 
English  ballad  of  '  Chevy  Chase.'  As  I  read  how  that  famous  hunt  fell 
out,  how  noble  knights  and  barons  bold  went  down  in  death,  how  brave 
Lord  Percy  fell,  and  Scotland's  pride,  Earl  Douglas,  too,  my  enthusiasm 
was  never  chilled  by  a  thought  that  I  was  reading  events  '  totally  ficti 
tious,'  as  Spaulding  tells  us  they  are.  But,  of  all  the  treasures  I  there 
found,  I  oftenest  read  the  letters  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu, 
which  have  always  been  regarded  as  models  of  epistolary  composition. 
It  is  objected  that  she  sometimes  seems  unamiable  and  unfeeling ;  yet, 
even  then,  she  is  so  witty  and  charming,  one  is  almost  tempted  to  for 
give  her.  Still,  I  think,  there  is  reason  for  this  charge  against  her  earli 
est  letters.  The  absurdities  and  follies  of  the  gay  and  courtly  circle  in 
which  she  moved  appeared  so  ridiculous,  in  the  light  of  her  strong  un 
derstanding,  that,  in  letters  to  her  friends,  she  often  hit  off  those  she  met 
with  the  severest  sarcasm.  Addison,  Pope,  and  other  distinguished 
writers  of  that  age, m  were  proud  of  her  friendship  ;  but  Pope  quailed  be 
fore  her  peerless  wit  and  sarcasm,  and  from  a  most  ardent  friend  turned 
to  an  implacable  enemy." 


ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH.  301 

After  describing,  at  some  length,  the  character  and  career  of 
Lady  Montagu,  the  manuscript  concludes:  — 

"  She  [Lady  Montagu]  was  proficient  in  Greek  and  Latin,  and  seems 
to  have  read  almost  everything  that  had  ever  been  written  in  any  lan 
guage.  In  a  letter  to  her  daughter,  in  relation  to  the  education  of  her 
granddaughter,  she  says  :  '  Learning,  if  she  has  a  real  taste  for  it,  will 
not  only  make  her  contented,  but  happy.  No  entertainment  is  so  cheap 
as  reading,  nor  any  pleasure  so  lasting.'  Thus  much  for  the  old  book. 
I  saw  its  friendly,  honest  face,  soiled  and  time-worn,  only  a  few  months 
ago  ;  but  it  is  not  so  perishable  as  earth's  frail  children.  I  gazed  upon 
it  with  mingled  emotions  of  pain  and  pleasure ;  for  I  remembered  that 
the  dear  ones,  who  in  those  happy  hours  had  read  from  that  book  with 
me,  were  all  gone.  The  glad  voices  of  seven  children  once  rang  through 
that  home  ;  but  now  every  one  is  hushed  in  death,  and  the  poor,  stricken 
parents  are  left  alone.  I  remembered  when  the  father  —  a  man  of  un 
common  tenderness  of  feeling  —  said  to  me,  a  few  days  before  his  last 
child  was  laid  in  the  grave,  his  voice  trembling,  and  his  eyes  full  of  tears, 
'  Oh  !  I  had  hoped  the  Lord  would  spare  me  one  child ;  but  his  will  be 
done.' 

"  So  that  old  book  is  very  dear  to  me." 

This  charming  sketch  of  the  old  book  is  a  striking  picture  of 
her  own  mind  and  heart  during  the  early  days  of  her  sorrow. 

But,  by  slow  degrees,  her  sorrow  gave  place  to  ambition  for 
larger  culture.  In  the  autumn  of  1848  she  attended  a  select 
school  at  Mantua  Centre,  taught  by  Norman  Dunshee,  and, 
among  her  other  studies,  began  Latin.  In  the  winter  of  1849-50 
she  taught  the  school  in  the  Darwin- Atwater  district,  and  in 
the  winter  of  1850-51  taught  at  Hiram  Rapids  her  last  district 
school.  She  is  still  remembered  with  enthusiastic  affection  by 
the  people  of  that  neighborhood. 

Her  success  as  a  teacher  was  well  known  to  Charles  D.  Wil- 
ber,  at  whose  suggestion  President  Hayden  secured  her  services 
to  the  young  Eclectic;  and  in  the  spring  of  1851  she  came 
here  as  a  teacher  in  the  English  department.  Up  to  that  time 
no  lady  had  taught  in  the  Eclectic,  except  in  the  primary  de 
partment,  which  was  established  at  the  opening  of  the  insti 
tution  in  November,  1850,  and  maintained  for  several  years. 
Before  the  end  of  her  first  term,  the  Trustees  found  that,  in  se 
curing  her  services,  they  had  drawn  a  rich  prize. 

The  Eclectic  was  compelled  to  create  its  own  scholarship  and 
culture.  Very  few  of  its  early  students  had  gone  beyond  the 


302  ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH. 

ordinary  studies  of  the  district  school;  and  a  large  majority 
of  them  needed  thorough  discipline  in  the  common  English 
branches.  I  doubt  if  any  teacher  at  Hiram  was  equal  to  Miss 
Booth  in  the  power  to  inspire  such  students  with  the  spirit  of 
earnest,  hard  work,  for  the  love  of  it. 

In  August  next  it  will  be  twenty-five  years  since  I  first  saw 
her.  I  came  to  the  Eclectic  as  a  student  in  the  fall  term  of 
1851,  and,  a  few  days  after  the  beginning  of  the  term,  I  saw  a 
class  of  three  reciting  in  mathematics,  —  geometry,  I  think. 
They  sat  on  one  of  the  red  benches,  in  the  centre  aisle  of  the 
lower  chapel.  I  had  never  seen  a  geometry;  and,  regarding 
both  teacher  and  class  with  a  feeling  of  reverential  awe  for  the 
intellectual  height  to  which  they  had  climbed,  I  studied  their 
faces  so  closely  that  I  seem  to  see  them  now  as  distinctly  as  I 
saw  them  then.  And  it  has  been  my  good  fortune  since  that 
time  to  claim  them  all  as  intimate  friends.  The  teacher  was 
Thomas  Munnell ;  and  the  members  of  his  class  were  William 
B.  Hazen,  George  A.  Baker,  and  Almeda  A.  Booth. 

Let  us  pause  here  to  consider  the  situation  and  attainments 
of  Miss  Booth  in  1851,  at  the  beginning  of  what  we  may  call 
her  second  life.  She  was  twenty-eight  years  of  age.  In  many 
respects  her  character  was  fully  matured.  She  had  enjoyed 
somewhat  better  advantages  than  most  women  of  that  period, 
who,  born  of  the  pioneers  and  unblessed  by  wealth,  were  reared 
in  the  narrow  circle  of  country  life.  Though  she  had  made  the 
most  of  her  opportunities,  yet  she  had  hardly  entered  the  circle 
of  that  larger  scholarship  and  broader  culture  which  women 
enjoy  in  older  communities.  As  a  means  of  estimating  more 
accurately  her  abilities  and  merits,  let  us  contrast  her  attain 
ments  at  that  time  with  those  of  a  woman  of  wider  fame,  who 
was  greatly  admired  by  Miss  Booth,  and  who  was  very  like  her 
in  intellectual  force. 

Margaret  Fuller  was  born  at  Cambridge,  Mass.,  and  from 
early  life  breathed  the  atmosphere  of  the  highest  culture  of 
New  England.  Her  father,  a  graduate  of  Harvard,  an  accom 
plished  French  scholar,  thoroughly  read  in  general  history  and 
literature,  a  prominent  lawyer,  and  for  many  years  a  distin 
guished  member  of  Congress,  early  devoted  himself  personally 
to  the  work  of  his  daughter's  education.  At  six  years  of  age 
she  was  able  to  read  Latin ;  and  soon  her  young  imagination 
was  fired  by  the  strong  and  beautiful  legends  of  classic  history 


ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH. 


303 


and  mythology.  Wandering  at  will  in  her  father's  well-filled 
library,  and  gathering  such  food  as  her  young  spirit  could 
assimilate,  she  read,  when  eight  years  of  age,  "  Romeo  and 
Juliet,"  the  quaint  and  wonderful  humor  of  Cervantes,  and  the 
bright  pictures  of  Parisian  life  portrayed  in  the  pages  of  Mo- 
liere.  In  her  nineteenth  year  she  had  finished  a  thorough 
course  in  one  of  the  best  training-schools  of  Massachusetts. 
At  twenty-two  she  had  mastered  the  German  language,  and 
read  the  principal  German  authors.  At  twenty-three  she  was 
teaching  the  languages,  and  attracting  to  herself  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  all  who  came  within  her  reach.  Mr.  Emerson  says  of 
her  at  that  period,  "  She  was  an  active  and  inspiring  companion 
and  correspondent;  and  all  the  heart,  thought,  and  nobleness 
of  New  England  seemed  at  that  moment  related  to  her  and  she 
to  it."  At  twenty-five  she  was  translating  the  correspondence 
of  Goethe,  was  devouring  the  works  of  Madame  de  Stae'l  in 
French,  and  of  Epictetus  in  Latin,  and  was  ranging  at  will 
through  the  realms  of  English  literature  and  philosophy.  At 
twenty-eight  she  became  the  editor  of  a  literary  journal,  and  was 
assisted  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  George  Ripley,  and  many 
other  prominent  writers.  Her  wide  acquaintance,  and  still 
wider  correspondence,  placed  at  her  command  the  culture  and 
literary  wealth  of  both  hemispheres.  From  that  time  forward 
she  rose  rapidly  from  height  to  height,  until  a  tragic  death 
closed  her  career  in  1850.  Pier  native  powers  of  mind  were 
undoubtedly  great,  and  she  would  not  have  remained  unknown 
in  any  sphere  of  life,  however  humble ;  but  it  must  be  acknowl 
edged  that  very  much  of  her  success  was  due  to  her  rare  oppor 
tunities  for  early  culture. 

Contrast  with  this  brilliant  picture  the  situation  of  Miss 
Booth  at  twenty-eight  years  of  age.  We  have  followed  the 
history  of  her  toilful  life  up  to  that  period.  We  saw  her  moving 
in  a  narrow  and  humble  sphere,  creating  her  own  means  of  cul 
ture,  unaided  by  the  companionship  of  superior  minds  to  in 
spire  and  guide  her  development.  After  the  light  of  her  young 
life  had  been  quenched  in  a  great  sorrow,  we  saw  her  turning 
sadly  away  from  the  wreck  of  her  hopes,  and  beginning  the 
hard  task  of  creating  the  new  conditions  out  of  which  she  might 
gain  a  broader,  deeper  culture,  and  become  more  useful  to  her 
generation.  We  found  her  not  farther  advanced  in  technical 
scholarship  at  twenty-eight  years  of  age  than  Margaret  Fuller 


304  ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH. 

was  at  seventeen;  and  even  then  her  further  advancement 
depended  upon  what  she  could  accomplish  for  herself,  while 
teaching  six  or  seven  great  classes  a  day,  and  discharging  the 
other  numberless  duties  which  fell  to  her  lot  as  chief  lady 
teacher  in  a  mixed  school  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  scholars. 

Highly  as  I  appreciate  the  character  of  Margaret  Fuller, 
greatly  as  I  admire  her  remarkable  abilities,  I  do  not  hesitate 
to  say,  that  in  no  four  years  of  her  life  did  her  achievements, 
brilliant  as  they  were,  equal  the  work  accomplished  by  Miss 
Booth  during  the  four  years  that  followed  her  coming  to 
Hiram. 

I  was  never  a  member  of  a  class  that  recited  to  her,  and  I 
cannot  speak  of  her  work  as  a  teacher  as  seen  from  the  stand 
point  of  a  pupil;  but  I  know  from  personal  observation,  and 
from  the  unanimous  testimony  of  thousands  who  were  so  for 
tunate  as  to  be  her  pupils,  that  her  power  over  classes  as  a 
whole,  and  over  every  member,  was  very  great  and  beneficent. 
In  the  earlier  years  of  her  teaching  here  she  frequently  took 
advanced  classes  in  grammar  and  arithmetic,  numbering  from 
ninety  to  one  hundred  each.  Without  any  parade  of  authority, 
without  appearing  to  govern  at  all,  she  always  held  them  in 
most  admirable  order.  What  was  still  more  remarkable,  each 
pupil  felt  that  his  relations  to  her  were  those  of  very  direct  per 
sonal  responsibility  and  sympathy,  and  that  he  owed  her  a 
personal  apology  for  any  dereliction  or  failure  on  his  part,  and 
a  debt  of  affectionate  gratitude  for  the  largest  measure  of  his 
success. 

Her  classes  in  botany  and  astronomy  were  always  filled  with 
enthusiasm  for  their  work,  and  with  affectionate  admiration  for 
Miss  Booth.  She  did  not  deliver  formal  lectures  on  these  sub 
jects,  but  she  carried  to  almost  every  recitation  a  memorandum 
of  brief  notes,  from  which,  during  the  course  of  the  lesson,  she 
threw  out  fertile  and  striking  suggestions,  which  illuminated  the 
subject,  and  made  every  pupil  feel  that  to  be  absent  from  a 
recitation  of  her  class  was  to  suffer  personal  loss.  I  have  found 
among  her  papers  many  of  these  memoranda,  full  of  strong  and 
beautiful  suggestions. 

Besides  doing  her  full  share  of  the  heavy  work  of  the  class 
room,  Miss  Booth  had  special  charge  of  the  ladies,  and  from 
1852  onward  devoted  much  time  to  them  as  their  confidential 
counsellor  and  friend.  There  are  hundreds  of  noble  women 


ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH.  305 

who  have  worn  the  royal  crown  of  maternity  these  many  years, 
—  and  some  of  them  are  present  to-day, — whose  hearts  are  still 
full  of  precious  memories  of  those  familiar  lectures,  or  rather 
conversations,  in  the  lower  chapel,  in  which  Miss  Booth  gave 
them  the  benefit  of  her  rich  experience  and  wise  counsel  in  the 
conduct  of  life.  The  notes  of  some  of  these  conversations  I 
have  found  among  her  manuscripts.  One  was  written  out  in 
full,  in  which  she  unfolded  her  conception  of  how  solemn  a 
thing  it  is  to  live  and  to  perform  those  duties  which  fall  to  the 
lot  of  woman. 

She  aided  in  organizing  and  maintaining  the  first  ladies'  liter 
ary  society  in  the  Eclectic,  and  for  several  years  took  an  active 
part  in  its  proceedings.  Her  essays  prepared  for  its  meetings 
are  models  of  sound  judgment  and  of  finished,  graceful  style. 

I  first  became  acquainted  with  her  qualities  as  a  writer  in  the 
spring  term  of  1852,  when  Corydon  E.  Fuller  and  I  were  ap 
pointed  to  aid  her  in  writing  a  colloquy  for  the  public  exercises 
at  the  close  of  the  school  year.  Having  chosen  a  theme  found 
ed  on  historical  events  in  the  time  of  Pope  Leo  X.,  she  sketched 
the  outline  of  the  piece,  assigned  portions  to  her  two  associates, 
set  them  to  reading  up  the  history  of  the  period  to  which  the 
piece  related,  directed  and  corrected  their  work,  adapted  it  to 
her  own,  cast  the  parts,  criticised  and  trained  those  who  were  to 
perform  them,  took  the  most  difficult  and  least  desirable  part 
herself,  and  put  the  piece  on  the  stage  with  such  skill  as  to 
surprise  and  delight  the  great  audience  that  assembled  under 
the  bower  built  among  the  apple-trees  north  of  the  College. 
I  esteemed  myself  especially  fortunate  and  highly  honored  in 
being  chosen  to  aid  her  in  that  work.  My  admiration  of  her 
knowledge  and  ability  was  unbounded.  And  even  now,  after  the 
glowing  picture  painted  upon  my  memory  in  the  strong  colors 
of  youthful  enthusiasm  has  been  shaded  down  by  the  colder 
and  more  sombre  tints  which  a  quarter  of  a  century  has  added, 
I  still  regard  her  work  on  that  occasion  as  possessing  great 
merit.  I  have  read  again  some  of  the  pages  of  the  faded  manu 
script,  a  few  of  which  survive ;  and  I  find  that  her  part  of  it 
still  justifies  much  of  my  early  enthusiasm. 

To  her  marked  success  in  this  piece  is  due  the  fact  that,  dur 
ing  many  subsequent  years,  an  original  drama  —  or,  in  the 
school  dialect,  a  "colloquy" — was  the  most  attractive  feature 
of  commencement  days.  There  are  many  present  to-day  who 

VOL.  n.  20 


306  ALMEDA  A.  BOOTH. 

remember  these  colloquies;  — that  of  1853,  founded  on  the 
Book  of  Esther;  "  Burr  and  Blennerhassett,"  in  1854,  when  O. 
P.  Miller  and  Philip  Burns  played  the  heavy  parts  of  Adams 
and  Jefferson,  and  Rhodes  and  Pettibone  the  less  pious  but 
more  exciting  roles  of  Burr  and  Blennerhassett ;  "  Lafayette,"  in 
1856;  "  Ivanhoe,"  in  1857,  in  which  the  stirring  scenes  of  the 
Crusades  were  revived;  "The  Conspiracy  of  Orsini,"  in  1858, 
(suggested  by  the  reading  of  Ruffini's  "  Doctor  Antonio,")  in 
which  Elias  A.  Ford  trod  the  stage  as  Louis  Napoleon,  —  with 
Electa  Beecher  as  empress  and  Amzi  Atwater  as  prime  minis 
ter,  —  while  White,  Chamberlain,  and  Ferry  were  treacherously 
seeking  his  imperial  life.  Then  there  was  "  The  Highland 
Chiefs,"  in  1859,  in  which  Henry  James  and  Henry  White  were 
Lochiel  and  McAlpine,  in  deadly  feud  with  Chamberlain  and 
Dudley,  Lords  of  Glencoe  and  Keppoch,  mustering  their  clans 
for  battle  to  determine  which  of  these  fierce  knights  should 
win  the  hands  of  Sophia  Williams  and  Myra  Robbins,  the  Ellen 
and  the  Margaret  of  the  hour.  There  was  "  Pickwickian  Poli 
tics,"  in  1860,  with  Brown  and  Bennett  as  stars;  and  "Zenobia," 
in  1861,  in  which  Mary  E.  White  was  the  proud  Queen  of  Pal 
myra,  with  half  a  score  of  young  men  as  bold  Romans  leading 
her  away  in  triumph.  In  all  these  pieces,  the  parts  which  were 
surest  to  touch  the  heart  and  win  approval  were  those  written 
by  Miss  Booth.  They  showed  how  varied  were  her  intellectual 
resources,  and  with  what  power  and  grace  she  could  employ 
them. 

Occupied  as  she  was  in  the  daily  discharge  of  such  exacting 
duties,  one  would  think  she  had  small  leisure  for  any  other 
work.  But  we  shall  see  what  more  she  was  able  to  accomplish. 
She  saw  that,  so  long  as  she  taught  only  the  English  studies, 
the  bright  and  ambitious  pupils  to  whom  she  was  so  strongly 
attached  would  pass  out  of  her  reach,  by  entering  upon  studies 
in  which  she  could  not  guide  them.  The  desire  to  avoid  this 
gave  a  new  impulse  to  her  ambition  for  higher  scholarship ; 
and  in  the  autumn  of  1851  she  began  those  studies  necessary 
to  fit  her  for  teaching  in  the  higher  grades.  When  a  class  was 
formed  in  anything  she  had  not  mastered,  she  arranged  to  have 
it  recite  before  or  after  school  hours,  and  took  her  place  as 
one  of  its  members.  Thus  she  kept  in  advance  of  her  own 
pupils,  and  abreast  with  the  foremost  students  of  the  institution. 

I  am  not  certain  when  she  began  Greek;    but  I  remember 


ALMEDA  A.   BOOTH.  307 

that  she  and  I  were  members  of  the  class  that  began  Xeno- 
phon's  Anabasis,  in  the  fall  term  of  1852.  Near  the  close  of 
that  term,  I  also  began  to  teach  in  the  Eclectic,  and  thereafter, 
like  her,  could  only  keep  up  my  studies  outside  of  my  own 
teaching  hours.  In  mathematics  and  the  physical  sciences  I 
was  far  behind  her;  but  we  were  nearly  at  the  same  place  in 
Greek  and  Latin,  each  having  studied  them  about  three  terms. 
She  had  made  her  home  at  President  Hayden's  almost  from  the 
first;  and  I  became  a  member  of  his  family  at  the  beginning  of 
the  winter  term  of  1852-53.  Thereafter,  for  nearly  two  years, 
she  and  I  studied  together,  and  recited  in  the  same  classes,  fre 
quently  without  other  associates,  till  we  had  nearly  completed 
the  classical  course. 

From  a  diary  which  I  then  kept,  and  in  which  my  own  studies 
are  recorded,  I  am  able  to  state,  quite  accurately,  what  she 
accomplished  in  the  classics,  from  term  to  term,  in  the  two  fol 
lowing  years.  During  the  winter  and  spring  terms  of  1853, 
she  read  Xenophon's  Memorabilia  entire,  reciting  to  Professor 
Dunshee.  In  the  summer  vacation  of  1853,  twelve  of  the  more 
advanced  students  engaged  Professor  Dunshee  as  a  tutor  for 
one  month.  John  Harnit,  H.  W.  Everest,  Philip  Burns,  C.  C. 
Foote,  Miss  Booth,  and  I  were  of  the  number.  A  literary  soci 
ety  was  formed,  in  which  all  took  part.  During  those  four 
weeks,  besides  taking  an  active  part  in  the  literary  exercises  of 
the  society,  Miss  Booth  read  thoroughly,  and  for  the  first  time, 
the  Pastorals  of  Virgil, — that  is,  the  Georgics  and  Bucolics 
entire, —  and  the  first  six  books  of  Homer's  Iliad,  accompanied 
by  a  thorough  drill  in  the  Latin  or  Greek  Grammar  at  each 
recitation.  I  am  sure  that  none  of  those  who  recited  with  her 
would  say  she  was  behind  the  foremost  in  the  thoroughness 
of  her  work  or  the  elegance  of  her  translations. 

During  the  fall  term  of  1853,  she  read  one  hundred  pages  of 
Herodotus,  and  about  the  same  amount  of  Livy.  During  that 
term,  also,  Professors  Dunshee  and  Hull,  and  Miss  Booth  and  I, 
met  at  her  room  two  evenings  of  each  week,  to  make  a  joint 
translation  of  the  Book  of  Romans.  Professor  Dunshee  con 
tributed  his  studies  of  the  German  commentators  De  Wette  and 
Tholuck ;  and  each  of  the  translators  made  some  special  study 
for  each  meeting.  How  nearly  we  completed  the  translation  I 
do  not  remember;  but  I  do  remember  that  the  contributions 
and  criticisms  of  Miss  Booth  were  remarkable  for  suggestive- 


308  ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH. 

ness  and  sound  judgment.  Our  work  was  more  thorough  than 
rapid;  for  I  find  this  entry  in  my  diary  for  December  15,  1853  : 
"  Translation  Society  sat  three  hours  at  Miss  Booth's  room,  and 
agreed  upon  the  translation  of  nine  verses." 

During  the  winter  term  of  1853-54,  she  continued  to  read 
Livy,  and  also  read  the  whole  of  Demosthenes  "  On  the  Crown." 
The  members  of  the  class  in  Demosthenes  were  Miss  Booth, 
A.  Hull,  C.  C.  Foote,  and  myself.  During  the  spring  term  of 

1854,  she  read  the  Germania  and  Agricola  of  Tacitus,  and  a 
portion  of  Hesiod. 

In  the  autumn  of  1854,  having  secured  from  the  Board  of 
Trustees  a  leave  of  absence  for  one  year,  she  entered  the  Senior 
class  of  Oberlin  College.  Though  she  had  not  yet  completed 
several  of  the  important  Junior  studies,  yet  during  her  one  year 
in  college  she  not  only  brought  up  all  arrears,  but  thoroughly 
accomplished  all  the  work  of  the  Senior  year,  and  in  August, 

1855,  was  graduated   as  Bachelor  of  Arts   in   the  full  classical 
course,  ranking  among  the  very  first  in  her  class.     Three  years 
later  she  received  the  honorary  degree  of  Master  of  Arts. 

A  student  no  further  advanced  than  Miss  Booth  was  in  1851 
usually  needs  three  years  of  preparatory  study  to  enter  the 
Freshman  year,  and  four  years  more  to  complete  the  course. 
But  in  the  four  years  that  followed  her  coming  to  Hiram,  she 
taught  ten  full  terms,  prepared  herself  for  college,  and  com 
pleted  with  remarkable  thoroughness  the  full  course  of  college 
study.  If  any  man  or  woman  has  done  more  in  the  same  length 
of  time,  I  do  not  know  it.  It  should  be  mentioned,  to  the  honor 
of  Oberlin  College,  that,  but  for  the  wise  and  liberal  policy  which 
opened  the  full  course  of  study  to  women,  Miss  Booth  could 
hardly  have  taken  the  bachelor's  degree  anywhere  in  this 
country. 

She  returned  to  Hiram  at  the  beginning  of  the  fall  term  of 
1855,  and  for  ten  years,  without  intermission,  devoted  herself  to 
the  work  of  teaching.  Each  year  added  to  her  thoroughness 
in  the  class-room,  and  increased  her  influence  over  students. 
Besides  taking  a  few  of  the  more  advanced  classes  in  the  ordi 
nary  studies,  she  taught  the  higher  mathematics,  and  Latin  and 
Greek,  maintaining  her  habit  of  making  special  preparation  for 
each  recitation.  She  handled  these  classes  also  with  remark 
able  thoroughness  and  success.  I  cannot  speak  from  personal 
knowledge  of  the  later  teachers  of  Latin  and  Greek  in  this  insti- 


ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH.  309 

tution ;  but  during  the  time  she  was  here  no  one  of  her  associ 
ates  was  her  superior  in  those  studies. 

As  the  earlier  teachers  were  called  away  to  other  fields  of 
duty,  their  places  were  supplied  by  selection  from  those  who 
had  been  Eclectic  students ;  and  thus  Miss  Booth  found  her 
self  associated  with  teachers  whose  culture  she  had  guided,  and 
who  were  attached  to  her  by  the  strongest  ties  of  friendship. 
I  know  how  apt  we  are  to  exaggerate  the  merits  of  those  we 
love ;  but,  making  due  allowance  for  this  tendency,  as  I  look 
back  upon  the  little  circle  of  teachers  who  labored  here  under 
the  leadership  of  our  honored  and  venerable  friend,  Mr.  Hayden, 
during  the  first  six  years  of  the  Eclectic,  and  upon  the  younger 
group  associated  with  me  from  1856  until  the  breaking  out  of 
the  war,  I  think  I  wrong  no  one  of  them  by  saying,  that  for 
generous  friendship  and  united  earnest  work,  I  have  never 
seen,  and  never  expect  to  see,  their  like  again.  Enough  new 
members  were  added  to  the  corps  of  teachers  from  year  to  year 
to  keep  alive  the  freshness  of  young  enthusiasm ;  and  yet  enough 
experience  and  maturity  of  judgment  were  left  to  hold  the  school 
in  a  steady  course  of  prosperity. 

The  influence  of  Miss  Booth,  especially  during  the  later  period 
to  which  I  have  referred,  was  not  surpassed  by  any  member  of 
that  circle.  A  majority  of  her  associates  had  been  her  students, 
—  the  children  of  her  intellect  and  heart.  She  had  watched 
their  growth  with  something  akin  to  maternal  pride;  and  she 
welcomed  them  to  that  circle  with  no  touch  of  envy,  but  with 
most  generous  and  helpful  friendship.  I  am  sure  that  Rhodes, 
Everest,  Atwater,  Hinsdale,  Miss  Wilson,  and  the  rest,  can  never 
forget  that  golden  age  of  our  lives ;  and  all  will  agree  with  me, 
that  one  light  at  least  shone  always  steady  and  clear,  —  the 
light  that  beamed  upon  us  from  the  mind  and  heart  of  Almeda 
A.  Booth. 

The  few  spare  hours  which  the  school  work  left  us  were  de 
voted  to  such  pursuits  as  each  preferred;  but  much  study  was 
done  in  common.  I  can  name  twenty  or  thirty  books  which 
will  forever  be  doubly  precious  to  me,  because  they  were  read 
and  discussed  in  company  with  her.  I  can  still  read,  between 
the  lines,  the  memories  of  her  first  impression  of  the  page,  and 
her  judgment  of  its  merits.  She  was  always  ready  to  aid  any 
friend  with  her  best  efforts.  When  I  was  in  the  hurry  of  pre 
paring  for  a  debate  with  Mr.  Denton,  in  1858,  she  read  not  less 


3io  ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH. 

than  eight  or  ten  volumes,  and  made  admirable  notes  for  me,  on 
those  points  which  related  to  the  topics  of  discussion.  In  the 
autumn  of  1859  she  read  a  large  portion  of  Blackstone's  Com 
mentaries,  and  enjoyed  with  keenest  relish  the  strength  of  the 
author's  thought  and  the  beauty  of  his  style.  From  the  rich 
stores  of  her  knowledge  she  gave  with  unselfish  generosity. 
The  foremost  students  had  no  mannish  pride  that  made  them 
hesitate  to  ask  her  assistance  and  counsel.  In  preparing  their 
orations  and  debates,  they  eagerly  sought  her  suggestions  and 
criticisms.  Everywhere  the  literary  life  of  Hiram  bore  abun 
dant  marks  of  her  guiding  hand. 

It  is  quite  probable  that  John  Stuart  Mill  has  exaggerated  the 
extent  to  which  his  own  mind  and  works  were  influenced  by 
Harriet  Mill.  I  should  reject  his  opinion  on  that  subject  as  a 
delusion,  did  I  not  know  from  my  own  experience,  as  well  as 
that  of  hundreds  of  Hiram  students,  how  great  a  power  Miss 
Booth  exercised  over  the  culture  and  opinions  of  her  friends. 

From  what  I  have  said  of  her  influence  over  young  men,  it 
must  not  be  inferred  that  she  was  wanting  in  sympathy  or  in 
fluence  with  her  own  sex.  It  is  true,  that  giddy  and  superficial 
women,  who  care  more  for  the  adornment  of  their  bodies  than 
for  the  enlightenment  of  their  minds,  were  not  strongly  attracted 
to  Miss  Booth;  but  by  all  the  better  class  of  thoughtful  and  ear 
nest  women  she  was  loved  with  ardent  and  enthusiastic  devotion. 

The  war  for  the  Union,  which  broke  up  so  many  happy 
circles,  and  changed  the  plans  of  so  many  lives,  wrought  great 
changes  in  Hiram,  and  swept  into  the  fiery  current  a  hundred 
of  our  best  students.  Their  fortunes  were  watched  with  patri 
otic  pride  and  affection  by  those  who  remained  to  sustain  the 
institution  and  promote  its  success.  During  those  trying  years, 
Miss  Booth  stood  at  her  post  of  duty,  always  loyally  faithful  to 
her  associates,  and  more  indispensable  to  the  institution  than 
ever.  In  one  of  her  letters  to  me,  written  in  August,  1861,  she 
said :  — 

"  In  all  my  early  forecastings  of  your  future,  and  that  of  the  noble  men 
who  went  with  you,  I  never  counted  upon  the  possibility  of  war ;  and  I 
hardly  know  how  to  adjust  my  mind  to  its  dreadful  realities.  Ah  me  !  to 
think  what  may  come  !  We  shall  follow  you  all  with  our  hearts,  and  do 
our  best  to  keep  the  light  of  the  Eclectic  burning.  The  task  is  a  great 
one  ;  but  at  a  time  of  such  arxiety  hard  work  is  a  blessing,  and  just  now 
our  hands  are  very  full  of  it." 


ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH.  311 

Through  the  darkness  of  the  war,  and  into  the  light  of  victory 
and  peace,  she  worked  on,  reaping  each  year  a  larger  and 
richer  harvest  of  results. 

About  the  end  of  1865  a  new  and  sacred  duty  called  her  to 
leave  the  field  in  which  for  nearly  fifteen  years  she  had  achieved 
such  remarkable  success.  Her  parents  had  become  old  and 
feeble,  and  her  father  had  so  far  failed  in  body  and  mind  as  to 
need  those  tender  personal  services  which  none  but  she  could 
render.  Without  a  murmur,  she  closed  the  long  period  of  her 
brilliant  career  at  Hiram ;  and,  leaving  a  circle  of  which  she  was 
the  chief  ornament,  she  removed  with  her  parents  to  Cuyahoga 
Falls,  established  a  quiet  and  unpretending  home,  and  began  a 
new  life  of  uncomplaining  self-sacrifice.  During  the  first  year 
of  her  residence  there,  she  was  manager  and  sole  servant  of  her 
household,  and  with  the  tenderest  filial  piety  devoted  herself 
wholly  to  the  care  of  her  parents.  In  the  autumn  of  1866,  her 
father's  health  had  so  far  recovered,  that,  in  addition  to  her 
home  cares,  she  accepted  the  place  of  Assistant  Principal  in  the 
Union  School  at  Cuyahoga  Falls,  then  under  the  superintend 
ence  of  V.  P.  Kline,  one  of  her  Hiram  students,  and  a  cherished 
friend.  There  she  continued  to  teach  four  years,  when  she  was 
chosen  Superintendent  of  all  the  schools  of  the  village,  and  for 
three  years  discharged  the  duties  of  that  position  with  her 
wonted  success. 

Her  life  at  Cuyahoga  Falls  exhibited  all  her  peculiar  powers, 
and  attracted  the  same  enthusiastic  love  which  she  had  enjoyed 
among  the  students  at  Hiram.  But  her  long  and  arduous  work 
had  begun  to  make  inroads  upon  her  health ;  and,  withdrawing 
from  the  superintendency  of  the  schools,  she  gave  private  les 
sons  to  select  classes  in  French  and  German  and  other  advanced 
studies  during  the  two  succeeding  years.  At  the  close  of  1874 
her  health  was  prostrated  by  a  dangerous  and  painful  disease, 
which  required  the  most  skilful  professional  treatment.  Few, 
even  of  her  most  intimate  friends,  knew  through  what  a  terrible 
ordeal  of  bodily  suffering  she  passed  the  last  year  of  her  life. 
In  the  autumn  of  1875,  she  determined  to  remove  to  Cleveland, 
where  she  could  receive  the  more  constant  attention  of  eminent 
physicians. 

Just  before  leaving  Ohio,  in  October  last,  I  called  on  her  in 
Cleveland,  where  she  was  spending  a  week  near  her  physicians, 
and  making  arrangements  for  a  change  of  residence.  She 


312  ALMEDA  A.  BOOTH. 

showed  no  signs  of  depression  of  spirits.  Patient  and  cheerful, 
she  looked  forward  to  the  hope  of  regaining  her  health,  and 
finding  a  home  near  the  friends  of  her  earlier  life.  I  expressed 
the  desire  that  she  might  yet  do  me  the  very  great  favor  to 
train  my  boys  for  college.  The  tears  filled  her  eyes  as  she 
said,  "  I  should  dearly  love  to  do  that;  it  would  seem  like  living 
our  own  lives  over  again " ;  and  then,  pausing  as  if  in  doubt 
whether  it  were  not  self-praise,  she  added,  "  I  believe  I  can 
teach  the  classics  better  than  I  could  when  I  was  in  Hiram." 
She  spoke  of  her  friends  in  that  warm  and  earnest  way  so 
peculiarly  her  own ;  and  I  bade  her  good  by  with  the  promise, 
and  in  the  confident  hope,  that  I  would  meet  her  in  the  Cen 
tennial  summer,  and  enjoy  again  the  blessings  of  that  friend 
ship  which  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  was  one  of  the 
noblest  and  richest  gifts  that  Heaven  has  vouchsafed  to  me. 
But  it  was  ordered  otherwise  by  a  wisdom  higher  than  ours. 
She  removed  to  Cleveland  on  the  loth  of  November  last,  with 
health  apparently  improving.  She  set  in  pleasant  order  her 
new  home,  in  the  midst  of  a  little  colony  of  her  dear  old  friends. 
Jennie  Eggleston  was  living  with  her;  Harry  Rhodes  and  his 
wife,  Henry  James,  and  Virgil  Kline,  all  familiar  Hiram  names, 
were  her  neighbors ;  and  she  and  they  looked  forward  to  a 
pleasant  winter,  to  be  made  brighter  by  frequent  renewals  of 
old  memories;  and  the  reunions  had  begun. 

On  the  8th  of  December  she  and  Miss  Eggleston  spent  the 
evening  at  Kline's,  where  they  read  and  conversed  several 
hours.  Almeda  read  aloud  Emerson's  essay  on  "  Compensa 
tion,"  and  appeared  to  be  all  herself  again.  She  seemed  so 
bright  and  so  well  that  her  friends  thought  a  long  life  of  health 
and  happiness  was  before  her.  But  that  reunion  was  her  last. 
Let  me  repeat  the  last  half-page  she  ever  read  :  — 

"  The  compensations  of  calamity  are  made  apparent  to  the  under 
standing  also  after  long  intervals  of  time.  A  fever,  a  mutilation,  a  cruel 
disappointment,  a  loss  of  wealth,  a  loss  of  friends,  seems  at  the  moment 
unpaid  loss  and  unpayable.  But  the  sure  years  reveal  the  deep  remedial - 
force  that  underlies  all  facts.  v  The  death  of  a  dear  friend,  wife,  brother, 
lover,  which  seemed  nothing  but  privation,  somewhat  later  assumes  the 
aspect  of  a  guide  or  genius ;  for  it  commonly  operates  revolutions  in  our 
way  of  life,  terminates  an  epoch  of  infancy  or  of  youth  which  was  wait 
ing  to  be  closed,  breaks  up  a  wonted  occupation,  or  a  household,  or  style 
of  living,  and  allows  the  formation  of  new  ones  more  friendly  to  the 


ALMEDA  A.   BOOTH.  313 

growth  of  character.  It  permits  or  constrains  the  formation  of  new  ac 
quaintances,  and  the  reception  of  new  influences,  that  prove  of  the  first 
importance  to  the  next  years ;  and  the  man  or  woman  who  would  have 
remained  a  sunny  garden-flower,  with  no  room  for  its  roots,  and  too 
much  sunshine  for  its  head,  by  the  falling  of  the  walls  and  the  neglect  of 
the  gardener,  is  made  the  banian  of  the  forest,  yielding  shade  and  fruit  to 
wide  neighborhoods  of  men."  1 

I  cannot  doubt  that  she  felt  the  truth  of  these  words ;  for  they 
portray  with  singular  fidelity  the  course  of  her  own  life.  Late 
that  night  she  was  taken  ill ;  and  after  a  week  of  great  suffering, 
borne  with  uncomplaining  fortitude,  she  died  on  the  morning  of 
December  15,  1875.  One  of  her  friends,  who  stood  by  her  at 
the  closing  scene,  wrote  me :  — 

"  She  passed  quietly  away.  Her  face  was  so  peaceful  in  death,  no 
trace  of  pain  upon  it.  There  she  lay  before  us,  as  though,  weary  with 
labor,  she  had  fallen  asleep.  All  that  loving  hands  could  do  for  her  we 
did.  We  wreathed  her  coffin  with  flowers,  and  bore  her  remains  to 
Cuyahoga  Falls,  where  a  mournful  and  tearful  audience  awaited  us  at  the 
church.  In  the  hearts  of  her  last  pupils,  as  in  the  hearts  of  her  earlier 
ones,  there  was  deepest  grief.  All  felt,  as  we  stood  by  her  grave,  that  no 
nobler,  grander,  purer  spirit  ever  dwelt  on  the  earth,  or  went  up  to 
heaven." 

Such  is  the  story  of  her  life,  all  too  poorly  told.  I  have  at 
tempted  to  trace  her  long  and  toilful  progress  through  its  sev 
eral  stages.  We  have  seen  that,  in  fact,  she  lived  three  lives  in 
one;  —  first,  the  life  of  early  struggle,  promising  to  culminate  in 
the  happy  contentment  of  a  home,  with  the  companionship  and 
love  of  a  husband ;  second,  the  larger  life,  born  of  a  great  sor 
row,  but  leading  her  along  a  rugged  path  to  the  calm  heights  of 
a  broad  and  beautiful  culture,  —  a  life  devoted  to  great  and  suc 
cessful  achievements  as  one  of  the  very  foremost  teachers  of 
her  time ;  and,  third,  a  life  of  heroic  and  unselfish  devotion  to  a 
sacred  filial  duty,  with  added  years  of  noble  and  beautiful  work 
as  a  teacher. 

It  remains  to  inquire  what  she  has  left  to  us  as  a  legacy  and 
a  lesson.  Her  life  was  so  largely  and  so  inseparably  a  part  of 
our  own,  that  it  is  not  easy  for  any  of  us,  least  of  all  for  me,  to 
take  a  sufficiently  distant  standpoint  from  which  to  measure  its 
proportions. 

We  shall  never  forget   her  sturdy,  well-formed  figure;  her 

1  Emerson's  Works,  Vol.  I.  p.  281  (Boston,  1882). 


314  ALMEDA  A.   BOOTH. 

head  that  would  have  appeared  colossal  but  for  its  symmetry  of 
proportions ;  the  strongly  marked  features  of  her  plain,  rugged 
face,  not  moulded  according  to  the  artist's  lines  of  beauty,  but 
so  lighted  up  with  intelligence  and  kindliness  as  to  appear  posi 
tively  beautiful  to  those  who  knew  her  well. 

The  basis  of  her  character,  the  controlling  force  which  devel 
oped  and  formed  it,  was  strength,  —  extraordinary  intellectual 
power.  Blest  with  a  vigorous  constitution  and  robust  bodily 
health,  her  capacity  for  close,  continuous,  and  effective  mental 
work  was  remarkable.  No  stronger  illustration  is  possible  than 
the  fact,  already  exhibited,  that  she  accomplished  in  four  years 
the  ordinary  work  of  ten. 

It  is  hardly  possible  for  one  person  to  know  the  quality  and 
strength  of  another's  mind  more  thoroughly  than  I  knew  hers. 
From  long  association  in  her  studies,  and  comparing  her  with 
all  the  students  I  have  known  here  and  elsewhere,  I  do  not  hes 
itate  to  say  that  I  have  never  known  one  who  grasped  with 
greater  power,  and  handled  with  more  ease  and  thoroughness, 
all  the  studies  of  the  college  course.  I  doubt  if  in  all  these  re 
spects  I  have  ever  known  one  who  was  her  equal.  She  caught 
an  author's  meaning  with  remarkable  quickness  and  clearness ; 
and,  mastering  the  difficulties  of  construction,  she  detected, 
with  almost  unerring  certainty,  the  most  delicate  shades  of 
thought.  She  abhorred  all  shams  in  scholarship,  and  would 
be  content  with  nothing  short  of  the  whole  meaning.  When 
crowded  with  work,  it  was  not  unusual  for  her  to  sit  by  her  lamp, 
unconscious  of  the  hours,  till  far  past  midnight. 

Her  powers  were  wqll  balanced.  When  I  first  knew  her,  it 
was  supposed  that  her  mind  was  specially  adapted  to  mathe 
matical  study.  A  little  later,  it  was  thought  she  had  found  her 
fittest  work  in  the  field  of  the  natural  sciences ;  later  still,  one 
would  have  said  that  she  had  found  her  highest  possibilities  in 
the  languages ;  and  Professor  Monroe  tells  us  with  what  ease 
she  fathomed  the  depths  of  so  severe  an  argument  as  Butler's 
Analogy. 

Her  mind  was  many-sided,  strong,  compact,  symmetrical. 
It  was  this  symmetry  and  balance  of  qualities  that  gave  her 
such  admirable  judgment,  and  enabled  her  to  concentrate  all 
her  powers  upon  any  work  she  attempted. 

To  this  general  statement  concerning  her  faculties  there  was, 
however,  one  marked  exception.  While  she  enjoyed,  and  in 


ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH.  315 

some  degree  appreciated,  the  harmonies  of  music,  she  was  al 
most  wholly  deficient  in  the  faculty  of  musical  expression. 
After  her  return  from  college,  she  determined  to  ascertain  by 
actual  test  to  what  extent,  if  at  all,  this  defect  could  be  over 
come.  With  a  patience  and  courage  I  have  never  seen  equalled 
in  such  a  case,  she  persisted  for  six  months  in  the  attempt  to 
master  the  technical  mysteries  of  instrumental  music,  and  even 
attempted  one  vocal  piece.  But  she  found  that  the  struggle 
was  nearly  fruitless;  the  music  in  her  soul  would  not  come 
forth  at  her  bidding.  A  few  of  her  friends  will  remember  that, 
for  many  years,  to  mention  "  The  Suwanee  River  "  was  the  sig 
nal  for  not  a  little  good-natured  merriment  at  her  expense,  and 
a  reminder  of  her  heroic  attempt  at  vocal  and  instrumental 
music. 

The  tone  of  her  mind  was  habitually  logical  and  serious,  not 
specially  inclined  to  what  is  technically  known  as  wit ;  but  she 
had  the  heartiest  appreciation  of  genuine  humor,  such  as  glows 
on  the  pages  of  Cervantes  and  Dickens.  Clifton  Bennett  and 
Levi  Brown  will  never  forget  how  keenly  she  enjoyed  the  quaint 
drollery  with  which  they  once  presented,  at  a  public  lyceum,  a 
scene  from  Don  Quixote;  and  I  am  sure  there  are  three 
persons  here  to-day  who  will  never  forget  how  nearly  she  was 
once  suffocated  with  laughter  over  a  mock-presentation  speech 
by  Harry  Rhodes. 

Though  possessed  of  very  great  intellectual  powers,  or,  as 
the  arrogance  of  our  sex  accustoms  us  to  say,  "  having  a  mind 
of  masculine  strength,"  it  was  not  at  all  masculine  in  the  oppro 
brious  sense  in  which  that  term  is  frequently  applied  to  women. 
She  was  a  most  womanly  woman,  with  a  spirit  of  gentle  and 
childlike  sweetness,  with  no  self-consciousness  of  superiority, 
and  not  the  least  trace  of  arrogance. 

I  take  pleasure  in  re-enforcing  my  own  views  of  the  com 
bined  strength  and  gentleness  of  her  character,  by  quoting  the 
following  letter  from  the  Hon.  James  Monroe,  who  was  one  of 
her  esteemed  professors  at  Oberlin. 

"  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C., 
May  28,  1876. 

"Mv  DEAR  GENERAL,  —  I  learn  that  you  are  preparing  an  address 
upon  the  life  and  character  of  Miss  Almeda  A.  Booth ;  and  I  cannot 
resist  the  impulse  to  write  you  a  note  upon  this  interesting  subject,  thus ' 
contributing  my  rill  of  memories  to  your  broader  and  deeper  current. 


316  ALMEDA  A.   BOOTH. 

"  It  is  among  the  gratifying  recollections  of  my  life  that  Miss  Booth 
was  a  pupil  of  mine  for  a  considerable  period  of  time,  in  connection  with 
a  college  class  at  Oberlin.  Soon  after  I  began  to  observe  the  habit  of 
her  mind,  I  discovered  that  she  was  a  remarkable  woman.  What  at  first 
struck  my  attention  was  the  union  in  her  character,  in  a  degree  very 
uncommon,  of  masculine  intellectual  strength  and  perfect  womanly  gen 
tleness. 

"  Her  intellectual  powers  were  such  as  would  at  once  have  attracted 
attention  in  any  undergraduate  in  any  college.  She  had  not  only  great 
force,  but  force  which  worked  with  evident  ease,  without  friction,  and 
without  conscious  effort.  I  shall  never  forget  her  recitations  in  Butler's 
Analogy.  Often,  when  one  member  in  the  class  after  another  had 
failed  rightly  to  interpret  some  difficult  paragraph,  Miss  Booth,  when 
called  upon,  would  at  once,  without  hesitation,  without  self-conscious 
ness,  and  with  no  idea  whatever  of  being  superior  to  others,  set  the  pas 
sage  in  the  truest  and  clearest  light,  both  as  to  its  intrinsic  meaning  and 
its  relation  to  the  context.  She  used  to  recite  the  Analogy  as  if  she 
had  written  it.  I  remember  the  pleased  expression  of  relief  which 
passed  over  the  faces  of  her  classmates  when  she  extricated  them  from 
some  difficulty.  They  all  esteemed  and  praised  her,  and  her  superiority 
made  no  one  envious. 

"  Her  gentleness  of  character  was  as  remarkable  as  her  strength  of 
intellect.  She  seemed  to  think  well  of  all  her  acquaintances,  and  never, 
to  my  knowledge,  thought  she  had  a  grievance.  She  was  noticeably 
kind  and  helpful  to  those  who  needed  attention,  and  loved  her  fellow- 
creatures  with  the  same  love  which  led  Christ  to  die  for  them.  On  the 
whole,  she  was  as  good  an  example  of  combined  '  sweetness  and  light ' 
as  I  have  ever  met  with. 

"  After  she  left  Oberlin  you  knew  much  more  of  her  than  I  did.  I 
often  regretted  that  I  could  not  continue  my  acquaintance  with  her. 
But  I  frequently  heard  of  her  great  usefulness,  and  of  the  high  esteem 
in  which  she  was  held  wherever  she  resided.  She  was  a  large,  strong, 
loving  soul ;  and  any  community  which  was  favored  with  her  presence 
must  have  been  the  better  for  it. 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"JAMES  MONROE." 

Though  possessing  these  great  powers,  she  was  not  unmind 
ful  of  those  elegant  accomplishments,  the  love  of  which  seems 
native  to  the  mind  of  woman. 

In  her  earlier  years  she  was  sometimes  criticised  as  caring 
too  little  for  the  graces  of  dress  and  manner ;  and  there  was 
some  justice  in  the  criticism.  The  possession  of  great  powers, 
no  doubt,  carries  with  it  a  contempt  for  mere  external  show. 


ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH.  317 

In  her  early  life  Miss  Booth  dressed  neatly,  though  with  the 
utmost  plainness,  and  applied  herself  to  the  work  of  gaining 
the  more  enduring  ornaments  of  mind  and  heart.  In  her  first 
years  at  Hiram  she  had  devoted  all  her  powers  to  teaching  and 
mastering  the  difficulties  of  the  higher  studies,  and  had  given 
but  little  time  to  what  are  called  the  more  elegant  accomplish 
ments.  But  she  was  not  deficient  in  appreciation  of  all  that 
really  adorns  and  beautifies  a  thorough  culture.  After  her  re 
turn  from  Oberlin  she  paid  more  attention  to  the  mint,  anise, 
and  cumin  of  life.  During  the  last  fifteen  years  of  her  life, 
few  ladies  dressed  with  more  severe  or  elegant  taste.  As  a 
means  of  personal  culture,  she  read  the  history  of  art,  devoted 
much  time  to  drawing  and  painting,  and  acquired  considerable 
skill  with  the  pencil  and  brush. 

She  did  not  enjoy  miscellaneous  society ;  great  crowds  were 
her  abhorrence ;  but  in  a  small  circle  of  congenial  friends  she 
was  a  delighted  and  a  delightful  companion. 

Her  religious  character  affords  an  additional  illustration  of 
her  remarkable  combination  of  strength  and  gentleness.  At  an 
early  age  she  became  a  member  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  and  continued  in  faithful  and  consistent  relations  with 
that  organization  until  she  united  with  the  Disciples,  soon  after 
she  came  to  Hiram.  Her  firmness  was  severely  tested  by  the 
religious  changes  which  occurred  in  her  own  home.  Her 
father's  enthusiastic  temperament  led  him  to  study  any  new 
phases  of  religious  opinion,  with  a  somewhat  impressible  credu 
lity.  The  Mormon  movement  of  1830-32  swept  him  for  a  time 
into  its  turbulent  current ;  ten  or  fifteen  years  later,  he  was  in 
terested  in  the  socialistic  theories  of  the  Shakers,  with  whom,  as 
I  understand,  he  united  for  a  short  time;  later  still,  he  paid 
much  attention  to  the  Spiritualistic  philosophy.  But  while  Miss 
Booth  thoroughly  respected  the  sincerity  of  her  father's  opin 
ions,  and  from  them  doubtless  became  wisely  tolerant  and  lib 
eral  in  her  opinions,  she  maintained  firmly,  but  without  bigotry, 
her  faith  in  God  and  in  the  life  to  come.  She  cared  little  for 
mere  differences  of  ecclesiastical  form,  and  abhorred  every  spe 
cies  of  ostentatious  and  noisy  piety ;  but  her  life  was  full  of  the 
calmness  and  beauty  of  religion ;  her  heart  was  filled  with  the 
charity  that  "  suffereth  long  and  is  kind,"  and,  still  greater,  that 
"  thinketh  no  evil."  At  the  memorial  meeting  held  here  soon 
after  her  death,  the  very  just  and  striking  statement  was  made 


318  ALMEDA  A.   BOOTH. 

by  one  who  had  known  her  from  childhood,  that  he  "  had  never 
heard  her  speak  evil  of  any  human  being." 

I  venture  to  assert,  that  in  native  powers  of  mind,  in  thor 
oughness  and  breadth  of  scholarship,  in  womanly  sweetness  of 
spirit,  and  in  the  quantity  and  quality  of  effective,  unselfish  work 
done,  she  has  not  been  excelled  by  any  American  woman. 
What  she  accomplished  with  her  great  powers,  thoroughly 
trained  and  subordinated  to  the  principles  of  a  Christian  life,  has 
been  briefly  stated. 

She  did  not  find  it  necessary  to  make  war  upon  society,  in 
order  to  capture  a  field  for  the  exercise  of  her  great  qualities. 
Though  urging  upon  women  the  necessity  of  the  largest  and 
most  thorough  culture,  and  demanding  for  them  the  amplest 
means  for  acquiring  it,  she  did  not  waste  her  years  in  bewailing 
the  subjection  of  her  sex,  but  employed  them  in  making  herself 
a  great  and  beneficent  power.  She  did  far  more  to  honor  and 
exalt  woman's  place  in  society  than  the  thousands  of  her  con 
temporaries  who  struggle  more  earnestly  for  the  barren  sceptre 
of  power  than  for  fitness  to  wield  it. 

She  might  have  adorned  the  highest  walks  of  literature,  and 
doubtless  might  thus  have  won  a  noisy  fame.  But  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  in  any  other  pursuit  she  could  have  conferred 
greater  or  more  lasting  benefits  upon  her  fellow-creatures,  than 
by  the  life  she  so  faithfully  and  successfully  devoted  to  the 
training  and  culture  of  youth.  With  no  greed  of  power  or  of 
gain,  she  found  her  chief  reward  in  blessing  others. 

I  do  not  know  of  any  man  or  woman,  who,  at  fifty-one  years 
of  age,  had  done  more  or  better  work.  I  have  not  been  able  to 
ascertain  precisely  how  long  she  taught  before  she  came  to 
Hiram ;  but  it  was  certainly  not  less  than  fifteen  terms.  She 
taught  forty-two  terms  here,  twenty-one  terms  in  the  Union 
School  at  Cuyahoga  Falls,  and,  finally,  two  years  in  private 
classes;  in  all,  nearly  twenty-eight  years  of  faithful  and  most 
successful  teaching,  to  which  she  devoted  the  wealth  of  her 
great  faculties  and  admirable  scholarship. 

How  rich  and  how  full  was  the  measure  of  gratitude  poured 
out  to  her,  from  many  thousands  of  loving  hearts !  And  to 
day,  from  every  station  in  life,  and  from  every  quarter  of  our 
country,  are  heard  the  voices  of  those  who  rise  up  to  call  her 
blessed,  and  to  pay  their  tearful  tribute  of  gratitude  to  her 
memory.  On  my  own  behalf  I  take  this  occasion  to  say,  that 


ALMEDA   A.   BOOTH.  319 

for  her  generous  and  powerful  aid,  so  often  and  so  efficiently 
rendered,  for  her  quick  and  never-failing  sympathy,  and  for 
her  intelligent,  unselfish,  and  unswerving  friendship,  I  owe  her 
a  debt  of  gratitude  and  affection  for  the  payment  of  which 
the  longest  term  of  life  would  have  been  too  short.  To  this 
institution  she  has  left  the  honorable  record  of  a  long  and 
faithful  service,  and  the  rich  legacy  of  a  pure  and  noble  life. 
I  have  shown  that  she  lived  three  lives.  One  of  these,  the  sec 
ond,  in  all  its  richness  and  fulness,  she  gave  to  Hiram.  More 
than  half  of  all  her  teaching  was  done  here,  where  she  taught 
much  longer  than  any  other  person  has  taught;  and  no  one  has 
done  work  of  better  quality.  She  has  here  reared  a  monument 
which  the  envious  years  cannot  wholly  destroy.  As  long  as 
the  love  of  learning  shall  here  survive ;  as  long  as  the  light 
of  this  College  shall  be  kept  burning;  as  long  as  there  are 
hearts  to  hold  and  cherish  the  memory  of  its  past;  as  long 
as  high  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  are  honored  and  loved 
among  men  and  women,  —  so  long  will  the  name  of  Almeda 
A.  Booth  be  here  remembered,  and  honored,  and  loved.  All 
who  knew  her  at  any  period  of  her  career  will  carry  her 
memory  as  a  perpetual  and  precious  possession.  With  the 
changing  of  a  single  word,  we  may  say  of  our  friend  what  the 
Poet  Laureate  of  England  said  of  Isabel :  — 

"  The  intuitive  decision  of  a  bright 
And  thorough-edged  intellect  to  part 
Error  from  crime  ;  a  prudence  to  withhold ; 
The  laws  of  friendship  charactered  in  gold 
Upon  the  blanched  tablets  of  her  heart ; 
A  love  still  burning  upward,  giving  light 
To  read  those  laws ;  .  .  .  . 
A  courage  to  endure  and  to  obey ; 
A  hate  of  gossip  parlance,  and  of  sway  ; 
....  the  world  hath  not  another 
(Though  all  her  fairest  forms  are  types  of  thee, 
And  thou  of  God  in  thy  great  chanty) 
Of  such  a  finished  chastened  purity." 


THE    HAWAIIAN    ISLANDS. 

REMARKS   MADE   IN   THE   HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 
APRIL  6,  1876. 


ON  the  30th  of  January,  1875,  tne  representatives  of  the  United 
States  and  of  the  king  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands  signed  a  commercial  reci 
procity  treaty  in  the  city  of  Washington.  Legislation  was  necessary  to 
carry  it  into  effect.  Pending  the  bill  introduced  for  that  purpose  in  the 
Committee  of  the  Whole,  Mr.  Garfield  made  these  remarks. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —  I  do  not  approve  of  the  Hawaiian 
treaty  because  it  looks  in  the  direction  of  securing 
possession  of  those  islands.  I  wish  to  state  distinctly  that, 
except  in  the  north,  —  I  make  an  exception  there,  —  I  trust  we 
have  seen  the  last  of  our  annexations ;  and  in  this  remark  I 
include  the  whole  group  of  West  India  Islands  and  the  whole  of 
the  Mexican  territory  contiguous  to  the  United  States.  Both 
these  islands  and  Mexico  are  inhabited  by  people  of  the  Latin 
races  strangely  degenerated  by  their  mixture  with  native  races, 
—  a  population  occupying  a  territory  that  naturally  enfeebles 
man,  —  a  population  and  a  territory  that  I  earnestly  hope  may 
never  be  made  an  integral  part  of  the  United  States.  I  cannot 
more  strongly  state  my  view  of  that  subject  than  by  saying 
that,  if  the  island  of  Cuba  were  offered  to  us  with  the  consent 
of  all  the  powers  of  the  world,  and  $100,000,000  in  gold  were 
offered  as  a  bonus  for  its  acceptance,  I  would  unhesitatingly 
vote  to  decline  the  offer.  We  occupy  a  portion  of  that  great 
northern  zone  which  girdles  the  world,  and  which  has  been 
the  theatre  of  the  greatest  achievements  of  civilization,  espe 
cially  in  the  history  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race;  and  should 
we  extend  our  possessions  into  the  tropical  belt,  we  should 
weaken  the  powers  of  our  people  and  government.  Hence  I 


THE   HAWAIIAN  ISLANDS.  321 

disclaim  any  purpose  or  suggestion  of  annexing  the  Hawaiian 
Islands  as  any  part  of  my  reason  for  supporting  the  treaty. 
On  the  contrary,  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  favor  the  treaty  is 
that  it  will  be  a  satisfactory  substitute  for  all  probable  schemes 
of  annexation.  It  is  the  best  solution  of  the  question. 

Mr.  Chairman,  there  are  two  reasons  why  I  specially  desire 
the  passage  of  this  bill.  The  first  is  on  the  ground  of  the  duty 
which  the  nation  owes  to  the  Pacific  coast;  the  second  is  on 
the  ground  of  the  general  good  of  the  whole  country. 

The  Pacific  coast,  the  latest  born  of  our  possessions,  was  in  a 
most  perilous  position  fifteen  years  ago.  Far  remote  from  us, 
there  was  great  danger  that  a  feeling  of  isolation  and  of  aliena 
tion  would  spring  up  between  the  people  of  that  coast  and  the 
people  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains ;  hence  arose  the  convic 
tion  that  these  distant  commercial  and  industrial  interests 
should  be  more  closely  united.  And  to  me  it  is  one  of  the 
sublimest  facts  in  our  recent  history,  that,  in  the  face  of  the 
opening  horrors  and  dangers  of  our  great  war,  when  it  was  in 
question  whether  our  republic  would  live  or  die,  the  great 
men  of  that  period  who  filled  these  seats  and  the  seats  in  the 
other  chamber  dared  to  show  their  faith  in  the  future  of  the 
republic  by  proposing  and  finally  carrying  a  measure  to  make 
the  largest  appropriation  that,  up  to  that  time,  had  ever  been 
made  in  a  single  act  by  any  nation  of  the  world.  It  was  sub 
stantially  to  appropriate  $100,000,000  in  order  to  bind  by  mate 
rial  bonds  of  iron  the  Pacific  coast  to  the  Atlantic,  and  thus 
hold  together  in  nearer  ties  of  commerce,  amity,  and  brother 
hood  the  two  coasts  of  this  republic.  I  speak,  of  course,  of  the 
legislation  that  looked  toward  the  construction  of  the  Pacific 
Railroad.  It  was  a  great  act  of  statesmanship.  The  purchase 
of  Alaska  was  another  step  in  that  direction,  not  so  marked, 
not  so  important,  but  yet  important,  for  it  secured  to  us  the 
extreme  northern  American  coast  of  this  great  Pacific  Sea. 

Now,  as  we  still  desire  to  complete  the  work  of  amity  with 
our  Pacific  brethren,  we  must  get  a  foothold  on  the  southern 
line  of  our  western  border.  The  whole  Pacific  coast,  with 
hardly  a  dissenting  voice,  comes  and  asks  us  for  this  legisla 
tion  ;  and  if  we  have  doubts  ourselves  on  the  ground  of  general 
policy,  we  owe  it  to  these  men,  our  brethren,  who  are  among 
the  choicest,  bravest,  and  most  enterprising  spirits  from  all  our 
Eastern,  Middle,  Western,  and  Southern  States,  who  have 

VOL.    II.  21 


322  THE   HA  WAIIAN  ISLANDS. 

planted  that  wonderful  civilization  on  the  Pacific  coast,  to  meet 
their  wishes,  unless  there  be  strong  reasons  why  we  should  not. 
Their  wishes  are  strong  with  me  as  controlling  my  view  of  this 
question. 

The  other  reason  relates  to  the  interests  of  the  whole  country. 
It  seems  to  me  that  no  man  can  look  into  the  remote,  or  even 
the  near  future  of  this  country,  remembering  the  vastly  impor 
tant  relations  which  have  sprung  up  between  us  and  the  two 
ancient  kingdoms  of  the  East,  where  our  young  country  has 
met  the  old  in  that  strange  union  which  recent  years  have  devel 
oped,  and  where  the  quaint  civilizations  of  those  old  countries 
are  pouring  their  influence  upon  us,  and  we  answer  back  with  our 
fresh  young  life, — no  man,  I  say,  thinking  of  that  new  and  vast 
development  of  the  relations  of  our  country  to  these  can  be  in 
sensible  to  or  neglectful  of  anything,  however  insignificant,  that 
may  be  considered  necessary  to  perpetuate  the  new  relations 
of  these  two  civilizations. 

Now,  here  is  a  group  of  islands  midway  between  Asia  and 
the  United  States,  the  resting-place  for  the  great  caravans  of 
the  sea,  —  the  halting-ground  whereon  travellers  on  the  ocean 
stop  to  recruit  their  shattered  ships,  it  may  be,  or  supply  them 
selves  with  needed  materials  for  carrying  on  the  work  of  com 
merce.  This  group  of  islands,  fortunately  for  us,  is  to-day 
dominated  in  all  its  leading  influences  by  Americans,  our  own 
brethren.  Their  hearts  warm  toward  us  as  their  first  choice  in 
forming  alliances.  They  are  ours  in  blood  and  sympathy,  and 
in  this  treaty  they  offer  us  the  first  place,  an  exceptionally 
favorable  place,  in  their  relations  to  the  world.  And  they  are  so 
situated  that,  if  we  reject  it,  they  must  go  elsewhere  for  alliances. 
If  we  reject  this  treaty  they  will  be  compelled  to  go  to  England 
or  to  France.  Both  of  these  countries  have  for  years  and  years 
been  longing  for  just  such  an  opportunity  in  reference  to  this 
group  of  islands  as  we  have  to-day.  It  is  the  simple  logical 
result  of  the  rejection  of  this  treaty,  that  before  many  months 
these  islands  will  be  taken,  controlled,  and  dominated  either  by 
England  or  by  France ;  and  it  is  for  us  to  say  whether  we  shall 
consent  to  that  alien  union  by  rejecting  this  offer,  or  shall  make 
that  other  union  impossible  by  closing  with  this  one  ourselves. 

I  have  heard  no  argument  against  this  treaty  that  appears  to 
me  to  have  any  considerable  weight  beyond  the  one  of  cost ; 
and,  as  applied  to  this  bill,  it  is  a  strange  argument.  It  is  not 


THE  HAWAIIAN  ISLANDS.  323 

that  cost  which  we  must  pay  out  of  the  treasury  from  revenues 
we  have  collected  as  taxes  from  the  people.  It  is  only  that 
cost  which  declines  to  tax.  It  is  not  an  expenditure,  but  a 
remission  of  taxation,  that  the  treaty  calls  for.  It  does  not 
call  for  the  appropriation  of  a  dollar.  It  simply  calls  for  the 
repealing  of  taxes  as  to  a  class  of  our  citizens. 

Now,  our  friends  on  both  sides  of  the  House  have  already 
shown  themselves  anxious  to  reduce  expenditures  to  such  an 
extent  that  they  could  remit  taxes.  The  most  grateful  work 
that  an  American  legislator  is  ever  called  upon  to  do  for  his 
people,  is  to  remit  some  of  their  burdens  of  taxation.  And 
the  thing  proposed  to  be  done  by  this  bill,  and  the  only  thing 
that  is  seriously  criticised,  is  that  by  it  we  do  remit  a  little  less 
than  $400,000  of  duties  which  our  people  are  now  required  to 
pay  upon  Hawaiian  products  that  they  import.  That  objec 
tion,  it  seems  to  me,  wholly  fails  to  rise  to  the  height  of  this 
great  question. 

I  have  but  a  few  more  words  to  add.  Remembering  that 
every  Secretary  of  State,  of  whatever  political  party,  before 
whom  this  subject  ever  came,  has  recommended  this  policy 
earnestly ;  that  the  men  whom  we  are  most  willing  to  regard 
as  our  political  teachers  have  held  it  strongly;  remembering 
also  that  it  is  clear  that  this  group  of  islands  must  seek  an 
alliance,  if  not  with  us,  then  with  our  rivals,  —  I  cannot  con 
ceive  that  the  grounds  upon  which  gentlemen  base  their  oppo 
sition  to  this  treaty  can  overcome  the  reasons  in  its  favor. 

I  said  in  the  outset  of  my  remarks,  that  one  of  my  reasons 
for  favoring  this  treaty  is  that  it  will  obviate  any  necessity  for 
annexing  these  islands.  Let  us  make  this  alliance,  and  wrhile 
it  lasts,  the  respect  which  the  name  of  the  United  States  carries 
with  it  among  the  nations  of  the  earth  will  prevent  any  attempt 
on  the  part  of  any  other  nation  to  obtain  control  there.  They 
will  not  undertake  any  scheme  of  annexation  at  the  risk  of 
quarrelling  with  the  United  States.  But  if  we  do  not  conclude 
this  treaty,  schemes  of  annexation  will  vex  us  from  year  to 
year,  until  we  shall  be  compelled  to  annex  these  islands  as  a 
matter  of  self-protection.  This  treaty  will  completely  avoid 
such  a  result  as  that. 


THE   GENEVA  AWARD. 

REMARKS   MADE   IN  THE  HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 
JULY  5,  1876. 


THE  Tribunal  of  Award  constituted  by  virtue  of  the  Treaty  of  Wash 
ington,  concluded  May  8,  proclaimed  July  4,  1871,  to  consider  the  Ala 
bama  and  other  similar  claims,  awarded  the  United  States  an  indemnity  of 
$15,500,000  in  gold,  which  was  duly  paid  into  the  treasury  of  the  United 
States.  Distribution  was  made  to  the  claimants  for  damages  directly 
resulting  from  the  depredations  of  the  Rebel  cruisers  Alabama,  Florida, 
and  Shenandoah,  under  the  act  of  June  23,  1874,  creating  a  "Court  of 
Commissioners  of  Alabama  Claims,"  subject  to  certain  limitations  and 
restrictions  contained  in  the  act.  But  when  such  distribution  had  been 
made,  a  large  sum  remained  undisposed  of.  The  law  provided  that  such 
surplus  should  remain  in  the  treasury,  as  a  special  fund,  subject  to  future 
action.  In  July,  1876,  three  bills  for  the  distribution  of  this  surplus 
were  pending  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  What  Mr.  Garfield  calls 
"  the  bill  of  the  majority  "  (of  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary)  proposed 
to  distribute  the  money,  first,  to  such  vessel  owners  as  had  suffered  loss 
from  Rebel  cruisers  and  who  had  been  excluded  by  the  act  of  June, 
1874,  as  not  coming  within  the  scope  of  the  Geneva  Award;  and  sec 
ondly,  to  vessel  owners  who  had  paid  premiums  for  war  risks,  whether 
to  insurance  companies  or  to  individuals.  The  "  Lawrence  Bill "  pro 
posed  to  apply  the  unexpended  balance  to  paying  the  national  debt. 
The  "  Knott  Bill "  proposed  to  give  the  money  to  insurers  of  vessel 
property  who  had  suffered  losses  from  the  Rebel  cruisers.  The  bill  of 
the  majority  was  carried  in  the  House,  but  fell  without  action  in  the 
Senate.  Mr.  Garfield  opposed  the  first  two  bills,  and  supported  the 
third,  in  the  following  remarks.  An  act  approved  June  5,  1882,  is  virtu 
ally  the  majority  bill  of  1876. 


MR.  SPEAKER,  —  It  is  too  late  in  this  debate  to  make  any 
argument  on  this  great  question.     But  I  have  desired  to 
state  very  briefly  the  general  grounds  on  which  my  mind  has 


THE   GENEVA   AWARD.  325 

finally  come  to  rest  in  the  consideration  of  this  subject.  I  have 
felt  a  very  deep  anxiety  about  this  bill ;  first,  for  the  credit  of 
the  United  States,  for  the  national  name;  second  (and  I  say 
second  not  in  importance,  perhaps,  but  in  order  of  statement), 
that  exact  justice  shall  be  done  to  all  parties  concerned.  The 
conclusions  to  which  I  have  come  can  be  stated  in  very  few 
words. 

It  seems  to  me  that  very  few  grander  phenomena  have  ever 
been  witnessed  in  the  affairs  of  nations  than  the  settling  of  so 
great  difficulties  as  we  were  involved  in  with  Great  Britain  on 
the  basis  of  friendly  judicial  arbitration.  It  was  substantially  the 
setting  up  of  a  high  court,  —  a  court  probably  higher  than  any 
other  the  world  has  known,  —  to  consider  and  adjudge  a  great 
international  dispute,  and  to  make  a  final  settlement.  The  two 
governments  established  the  high  tribunal,  and  filed  the  case 
and  the  counter  case,  the  argument  and  the  re.ply.  When  all 
were  in,  both  governments  pledged  the  sanctity  of  their  national 
faith  to  abide  by  the  result.  The  award  was  given  by  the  Ge 
neva  tribunal  in  language  very  specific  in  every  respect  save 
one.  The  pecuniary  part  of  the  award  was  a  gross  sum,  not 
distributed  item  by  item  to  the  several  parties  on  whose  account 
it  was  granted.  But  the  tribunal  did  what  was  the  next  most 
definite  thing.  They  named  in  the  solemn  and  precise  words 
of  the  judgment  itself  every  vessel  for  whose  depredations  the 
government  of  Great  Britain  was  responsible,  and  they  also 
stated  specifically  the  names  of  all  the  vessels  for  which  the 
United  States  had  claimed  such  responsibility,  but  for  which 
they  did  not  find  that  Great  Britain  was  liable.  They  discrimi 
nated  so  far,  for  example,  as  to  state  that  one  vessel,  the  Shen- 
andoah,  before  she  departed  from  the  harbor  of  Melbourne, 
did  nothing  for  which  Great  Britain  was  liable,  but  that  after 
her  departure  from  Melbourne  all  the  damage  that  she  inflicted 
upon  American  commerce  was  justly  to  be  charged  against 
Great  Britain.  So  specific  and  careful  were  they  in  all  the 
items  of  the  award,  that  they  gave  the  grounds  affirmatively 
and  negatively  on  which  the  award  was  made. 

And  here  I  pause  to  notice  an  argument  which  has  frequently 
been  urged  in  this  debate :  that  since  the  tribunal  awarded  "  to 
the  United  States  a  sum  of  $15,500,000  in  gold  as  indemnity 
to  be  paid  by  Great  Britain  to  the  United  States  for  the  satis 
faction  of  all  the  claims  referred  to  the  consideration  of  the 


326  THE    GENE  VA  A  WARD. 

tribunal,"  therefore  the  amount  of  the  indemnity  may  be  ap 
plied  to  any  of  the  alleged  claims.  It  is  a  most  singular  use  of 
words  to  say  that  a  clause  authorizes  payment  for  claims  which 
the  award  itself  rejects  as  not  valid.  This  argument  proceeds 
upon  a  narrow  and  indefensible  use  of  the  word '"  award,"  as 
though  the  money  alone  was  the  award.  The  language  of  the 
judgment  of  the  tribunal  is  decisive  of  this  question.  After 
reciting  the  authority  by  which  they  acted,  and  the  proceedings 
of  the  high  contracting  parties,  by  their  agents  and  attorneys, 
the  tribunal  say  that,  having  "  fully  taken  into  their  considera 
tion  the  treaty,  and  also  the  cases,  counter-cases,  documents, 
evidence,  and  arguments,  and  likewise  all  other  communications 
made  to  them  by  the  two  parties  during  the  progress  of  their 
sittings,  and  having  impartially  and  carefully  examined  the  same, 
has  arrived  at  the  decision  embodied  in  the  present  award."  : 

Then  follow  .the  decision  and  award,  which  consist,  first,  of 
conclusions  of  law,  in  which  the  legal  ground  of  the  responsi 
bility  of  Great  Britain  is  stated ;  secondly,  of  conclusions  of  fact, 
in  which  it  is  stated  for  what  cruisers  and  for  what  time  Great 
Britain  was  responsible ;  and,  thirdly,  the  amount  of  indemnity 
to  be  paid.  This  triple  statement  is  the  judgment,  and  nothing 
but  the  most  violent  construction  can  separate  its  elements  and 
call  any  one  of  them  the  judgment  of  the  tribunal. 

Now,  in  my  opinion,  we  are  bound  by  the  whole  judgment, 
and  every  sentiment  of  national  honor  should  lead  us  to  follow 
the  award  in  its  letter  and  its  spirit.  We  have  no  right  to 
inquire  into  the  wisdom  or  unwisdom  of  the  judgment.  No 
doubt  there  were  citizens  who  suffered  as  great  and  as  grievous 
losses  from  the  depredations  of  the  exculpated  cruisers  as  from 
any  which  the  tribunal  included  in  the  list  of  inculpated  cruis 
ers;  but  this  is  a  question,  not  of  making  an  award,  but  of 
executing  a  judgment,  and  from  that  duty  we  should  not  be 
diverted  by  any  considerations  but  the  language  and  command 
of  the  judgment  itself. 

Now,  what  is  the  award?  The  claims  filed  by  the  United 
States  were  of  two  kinds,  national  claims  and  claims  of  private 
citizens.  In  regard  to  the  claims  known  as  national  claims,  the 
tribunal  of  arbitration  announced,  — 

"  That,  after  the  most  careful  perusal  of  all  that  has  been  urged  on  the 
part  of  the  government  of  the  United  States  in  respect  of  these  claims, 

1  Executive  Documents,  1872-73,  Geneva  Arbitration,  Vol.  IV.  p.  50. 


THE    GENEVA  AWARD.  327 

they  have  arrived,  individually  and  collectively,  at  the  conclusion  that 
these  claims  do  not  constitute,  upon  the  principles  of  international  law 
applicable  to  such  cases,  good  foundation  for  an  award  of  compensation, 
or  computation  of  damages  between  nations,  and  should,  upon  such 
principles,  be  wholly  excluded  from  the  consideration  of  the  tribunal  in 
making  its  award,  even  if  there  were  no  disagreement  between  the  two 
governments  as  to  the  competency  of  the  tribunal  to  decide  thereon."  1 

After  this  solemn  decision,  how  can  it  be  affirmed  that  any 
part  of  the  indemnity  belongs  to  the  nation  as  the  payment  of 
national  damages?  They  were  "wholly  excluded  from  the 
consideration  of  the  tribunal  in  making  its  award."  So  they 
must  be  from  our  consideration  in  distributing  the  indemnity. 

In  order  to  learn  precisely  what  was  excluded  by  the  above 
judgment,  I  read  the  following  from  the  order  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States  to  the  agent,  which  was  read  to  the  tribu 
nal  and  made  a  part  of  its  proceedings :  — 

"  The  declaration  made  by  the  tribunal,  individually  and  collectively, 
respecting  the  claims  presented  by  the  United  States  for  the  award  of 
the  tribunal,  for,  first,  the  losses  in  the  transfer  of  the  American  commer 
cial  marine  to  the  British  flag ;  second,  the  enhanced  payment  of  insur 
ance  ;  and,  third,  the  prolongation  of  the  war,  and  the  addition  of  a 
large  sum  to  the  cost  of  the  war  and  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  is 
accepted  by  the  President  of  the  United  States  as  determinative  of  their 
judgment  upon  the  important  question  of  public  law  involved.  The 
agent  of  the  United  States  is  authorized  to  say  that,  consequently,  the 
above-mentioned  claims  will  not  be  further  insisted  upon  before  the 
tribunal  by  the  United  States,  and  may  be  excluded  from  all  considera 
tion  in  any  award  that  may  be  made."  2 

This  specific  statement  by  our  government  would  be  conclu 
sive  and  binding  upon  us,  even  if  the  judgment  of  the  tribunal 
were  not. 

There  remained  still  two  grounds  of  controversy:  first,  the 
direct  losses  growing  out  of  the  destruction  by  the  cruisers  of 
the  vessels  which  the  tribunal  should  adjudge  "  inculpated  " ; 
and,  secondly,  the  expenses  incurred  by  the  United  States  in  the 
pursuit  of  these  cruisers.  In  reference  to  this  second  class  the 
judgment  of  the  tribunal  is  in  the  following  language:  — 

"  Whereas,  so  far  as  relates  to  the  particulars  of  the  indemnity  claimed 
by  the  United  States,  the  costs  of  pursuit  of  the  Confederate  cruisers  are 
not,  in  the  judgment  of  the  tribunal,  properly  distinguishable  from  the 

1  Executive  Documents,  1872-73,  Geneva  Arbitration,  Vol.  IV.  p.  20. 

2  See  Ibid.,  Vol.  II.  pp.  579,  580 :  Minister  Schenck  to  Secretary  Fish. 


328  THE    GENEVA   AWARD. 

general  expenses  of  the  war  carried  on  by  the  United  States ;  the  tribunal 
is  therefore  of  opinion,  by  a  majority  of  three  to  two  voices,  that  there 
is  no  ground  for  awarding  to  the  United  States  any  sum  by  way  of  indem 
nity  under  this  head."  J 

Thus  was  excluded  the  only  remaining  form  of  national 
claims ;  and  we  have  the  authority  of  the  tribunal  for  declaring 
that  no  part  of  the  $15,500,000  was  allowed  for  any  form  of 
national  claims. 

There  then  remained  only  the  losses  to  American  citizens  by 
the  depredations  of  the  inculpated  cruisers  within  the  time  for 
which  the  tribunal  found  that  Great  Britain  was  responsible. 
Now,  with  such  limitations  fixed  by  the  tribunal  and  acknowl 
edged  by  the  United  States,  an  estimate  was  made  of  the 
amount  of  damages  to  private  citizens,  and  the  award  was 
made  in  a  gross  sum,  for  two  reasons:  first,  that  the  United 
States  might  have  it  immediately  to  distribute  to  the  people 
who  were  entitled  to  it ;  and,  secondly,  that  England  should  not 
be  required  to  dribble  it  out  in  small  payments,  but  might  dis 
charge  herself  of  all  further  obligation  by  a  single  payment. 
After  this  came  the  final  result  of  fifteen  and  a  half  millions 
of  gold  paid  into  our  hands  under  the  award  for  specific  dam 
ages  described  in  the  judgment  of  the  tribunal. 

In  view  of  the  facts  I  have  stated,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  can 
not,  without  the  greatest  national  dishonor,  use  one  dollar  of 
this  money  for  any  other  purposes  than  those  declared  in  the 
award  itself.  When  we  have  distributed  the  indemnity  in  strict 
accordance  with  the  finding  of  the  tribunal,  if  there  be  left  a  sur 
plus  of  one  million  or  five  million,  national  honor  demands  that 
we  return  that  surplus  to  Great  Britain.  I  should  consider  it  a 
proud  honor  for  the  American  Congress  to  vote  to  send  it  back 
to  Great  Britain,  with  this  message  :  "  When  we  examined  more 
carefully  the  items  of  loss,  we  found  they  were  not  so  great  as 
we  had  supposed.  The  difference  is  yours,  not  ours,  and  we 
return  it." 

Let  us  not  put  our  nation  in  the  shameful  position  of  driving 
a  sharp  bargain  to  get  a  large  sum  on  behalf  of  our  citizens, 
and  then  put  the  difference  into  our  treasury,  or  vote  it  away  to 
parties  to  whom  it  was  not  awarded.  I  shall  vote  against  the 
bill  of  the  majority,  against  the  bill  of  my  colleague,2  and  in 
favor  of  the  bill  of  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky.3 

1  Executive  Documents,  1872-73,  Geneva  Arbitration,  Vol.  IV.  p.  53. 

2  Mr.  Lawrence.  3  Mr.  Knott. 


PHASES   OF   THE   SILVER   QUESTION. 


REMARKS   MADE  IN  THE   HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES  ON 
VARIOUS   OCCASIONS. 


ON  the  2 yth  of  March,  1876,  "  A  Bill  to  provide  for  a  Deficiency  in  the 
Printing  and  Engraving  Bureau  in  the  Treasury  Department,  and  for  the 
Issue  of  Silver  Coin  of  the  United  States  in  place  of  Fractional  Cur 
rency,"  was  considered  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  second 
section,  which  related  to  silver,  was  as  follows  :  — 

"  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  is  hereby  directed  to  issue  silver 
coins  of  the  United  States  of  the  denomination  of  ten,  twenty,  twenty- 
five,  and  fifty  cents,  of  standard  value,  in  redemption  of  an  equal  amount 
of  fractional  currency,  whether  the  same  be  now  in  the  Treasury  awaiting 
redemption,  or  wherever  it  may  be  presented  for  redemption ;  and  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  may,  under  regulations  of  the  Treasury  Depart 
ment,  provide  for  such  redemption  and  issue  by  substitution  at  the  regu 
lar  Subtreasuries  and  public  depositories  of  the  United  States,  until  the 
whole  amount  of  fractional  currency  outstanding  shall  be  redeemed." 

The  appropriation  was  made,  and  the  above  section,  with  a  single  ver 
bal  change,  passed  both  houses  and  became  law.  Mr.  Garfield  made  the 
following  remarks :  — 

MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —  I  desire  to  say  at  the  outset  that  there 
are  but  two  points  for  this  House  to  determine  in  order 
to  decide  whether  they  will  pass  or  reject  this  bill.  The  first  is 
its  relation  to  economy  in  expenditure.  We  are  confronted  by 
the  fact  that  the  appropriation  for  printing  the  fractional  currency 
has  run  out,  and  we  are  now  called  upon  to  appropriate  $418,000 
to  keep  up  the  work  for  the  remainder  of  the  fiscal  year.  The 
Committee  on  Appropriations  find,  if  we  issue  the  silver  that 
we  have  on  hand,  and  proceed  to  substitute  silver  for  paper 
fractional  currency  as  far  and  as  fast  as  we  can,  that  we  shall 
need  but  $163,000  to  eke  out  the  supply  of  the  paper  fractional 
currency  while  the  substitution  is  taking  place.  If  we  do  not,  if 


330  PHASES   OF  THE  SILVER   QUESTION. 

the  silver  portion  of  this  bill  is  rejected,  we  must  appropriate 
just  $255,000  more  than  that  amount.  We  must  take  it  in  hand 
at  once,  and  determine  whether  we  will  turn  back  from  the  sil 
ver  policy  of  the  government  and  at  once  appropriate  a  quarter 
of  a  million  more  to  print  paper  scrip,  or  go  on  with  silver  re 
sumption  and  save  immediately  by  this  bill  that  sum  of  money. 
The  other  point  is  the  relation  of  this  bill  to  the  general  ques 
tion  of  the  resumption  of  specie  payments.  These  are  the 
two  principles  involved.  But  before  I  come  directly  to  the 
merits  of  the  two  points,  I  wish  to  call  attention  for  a  few 
moments  to  some  of  the  criticisms  that  have  been  made. 

First,  to  my  great  amazement,  is  the  charge  made  by  the 
gentleman  from  Pennsylvania,1  that  the  Director  of  the  Mint 
had  done  a  disgraceful  thing,  which  ought  to  make  the  cheek 
of  any  man  redden  with  shame,  because  he  had  put  into  his 
annual  report  a  statement  of  the  condition  of  the  great  silver 
mine  of  this  country.  I  will  quote  the  language  of  the  gen 
tleman,  so  that  I  may  do  him  no  injustice :  — 

"  The  report  of  the  Director  of  the  Mint  is  little  more  than  an  adver 
tisement  of  old  Townsend's  genuine  sarsaparilla.  It  is  a  pamphlet 
moulded  upon  the  advertising  pamphlets  of  that  physician  whose  sands 
of  life  are  nearly  run.  Pages  of  it  are  covered  with  evidence  of  the 
increasing  value  of  the  stock  of  the  mines  on  the  Comstock  lode,  and  its 
bulk  is  swollen  so  that  it  is  inconvenient  for  carriage  by  the  insertion 
of  maps  of  mines  and  their  machinery,  intended  to  demonstrate  the 
truth  of  his  advice  to  the  people  that  if  they  want  to  buy  stock  in  the 
Comstock  mines,  they  had  better  do  it  at  once."  2 

I  will  say  in  response  to  that,  what  my  friend  from  Pennsyl 
vania  ought  to  have  known,  that  we  have  for  years  annually 
appropriated  $10,000  to  $15,000  to  secure  statistics  of  the 
precious  metals,  and  nearly  two  years  ago  that  particular  work 
was  placed  under  the  control  of  the  Director  of  the  Mint  by  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  He  was  but  obeying  the  laws  of  the 
United  States  and  the  order  of  his  superiors  when  he  made  the 
report  of  which  the  gentleman  complains.  But,  sir,  who  ever 
before  heard  a  statesman  finding  fault  because  his  government, 
or  the  officers  of  it,  were  doing  what  they  could  to  ascertain  the 
facts  concerning  the  greatest  silver  mine  this  world  has  ever 
known  ?  Who  else  but  a  man  that  had  a  scheme  to  further,  or 
a  special  policy  to  carry  out,  which  policy  came  into  collision 
1  Mr.  Kelley.  2  Congressional  Record,  March  16,  1876,  p.  1769. 


PHASES   OF.  THE  SILVER    QUESTION.  331 

with  so  great  a  fact  as  this  great  silver  mine,  would  have  found 
fault  because  the  government  was  ascertaining  its  character. 
Why,  sir,  I  hold  in  my  hand  copies  of  official  letters  from  the 
French  government  in  which  the  great  finance  minister,  Leon 
Say,  .details  an  officer  to  be  sent  over  to  the  United  States  with 
instructions  to  go  in  person  and  examine  these  silver  mines  and 
make  a  report  that  will  show  what  this  great  American  silver 
product  is,  and  what  its  effect  is  likely  to  be  upon  the  money  of 
the  world.  Shall  we,  then,  in  the  American  Congress,  attack 
our  own  government  for  taking  such  means  at  a  less  expense  to 
ascertain  our  own  silver  product?  I  will  print  these  papers  as  a 
part  of  my  remarks.1 

"  PARIS,  February  I,  1876. 

"  SIR,  —  In  conformity  with  instructions  that  have  been  transmitted  to 
me  by  the  Minister  of  Finance,  and  of  which  you  are  cognizant,  I  beg  to 
request  you  to  transmit  to  me  reports  upon  everything  appertaining  to  the 
monetary  questions  and  circulations  in  the  United  States,  and  more  par 
ticularly  upon  the  production  of  mines.  The  following  are  the  principal 
points  to  which  for  the  present  I  call  your  attention  :  — 

"  First.  Monetary  question  in  the  United  States.  Ways  and  means 
proposed  to  prepare  the  resumption  of  specie  payments  within  the 
fixed  period  of  three  years.  Statistics  of  the  national  banks  and  other 
financial  establishments.  Amount  of  the  issue  of  greenbacks  and  other 
paper  moneys. 

"  Second.  Organization  and  administration  of  the  United  States  Mint. 
Statistics  of  the  coinage.  Circulation  of  gold  and  silver  coin,  and  what 
is  the  special  importance  of  the  coinage  of  the  trade  dollar,  and  its  use. 

"  Third.  Production  of  gold,  silver,  and  quicksilver  in  the  Pacific  States, 
and  more  particularly  in  California  and  Nevada. 

"  Fourth.  To  point  out  the  leading  silver  mines  now  being  worked  on 
the  great  Comstock  lode  in  Nevada,  and  the  importance  of  the  auriferous 
lands  and  grants  of  California. 

"  Fifth.  Valuation  of  the  production,  domestic  consumption,  and  expor 
tation  of  precious  metals. 

"  I  shall  avail  myself  of  the  opportunity  of  asking  you  for  such  other  in 
formation  as  will  complete  the  points  above  indicated. 

"  Accept,  sir,  the  assurance  of  my  sentiments  of  high  consideration. 

"L.  RUAN,  Director  of  the  Mint. 
"  COLONEL  JULES  BERTON." 

I  come  now,  Mr.  Chairman,  to  notice  some  criticisms  on 
this  bill  by  the  gentleman  from  New  York.2  When  he  first 

1  Only  the  principal  letter  is  here  given ;  the  other  two  are  merely  formal. 

2  Mr.  Hewitt. 


332  PHASES   OF  THE   SILVER   QUESTION. 

started  out  in  his  speech  he  said :  "  For  one,  I  here  declare  my 
readiness  and  my  intention  not  to  permit  any  party  trammels, 
or  any  fear  of  the  political  consequences,  to  interfere  with  my 
duty  in  this  respect,  and  I  here  state  that  I  am  quite  ready  to 
advocate  any  policy,  wherever  it  may  originate,  which  will  bring 
us  back  to  the  only  sure  ground  of  a  specie  basis." 

I  thoroughly  agreed  with  him,  and  expected  to  hear  a  good 
business  speech  from  a  business  standpoint.  But  before  he  had 
gone  a  bowshot  from  his  introduction  he  began  to  say  this 
is  a  Republican,  not  a  Democratic  measure,  and  appealed  to 
his  Democratic  associates  not  to  bolster  up  by  their  indorse 
ment  a  Republican  measure,  which,  if  unaided,  may  fail  and 
disgrace  the  party  that  originated  it.  And  all  through  the 
speech  I  was  impressed  with  this  thought :  that,  rather  than  have 
a  Republican  measure  prove  successful,  he  would  see  it  fail  in 
order  that  the  Republican  party  might  not  get  any  credit  for  it. 
For  example,  he  said :  — 

"But  the  existing  laws  regulating  the  finances  of  the  country  are 
essentially  in  execution  of  the  policy  of  the  Republicans,  and  will  be 
discussed  as  such.  The  act  of  January  14,  1875,  'Tp  provide  for  the 
Resumption  of  Specie  Payments  '  on  the  ist  of  January,  1879,  was  agreed 
upon  by  a  caucus  of  Republican  Senators,  and  made  a  party  measure 
both  in  the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Representatives,  the  Democrats 
generally  voting,  and  many  of  the  leaders  of  the  Democratic  party  speak 
ing  against  it.  It  was,  therefore,  a  Republican,  and  not  a  Democratic 
measure ;  and,  unless  the  majority  in  this  House  sees  fit  to  assume  the 
responsibility  by  indorsing  it  in  whole  or  in  part,  the  failure  of  this  act 
to  produce  any  beneficial  results  to  the  suffering  business  of  the  country, 
its  tendency  to  aggravate  the  evils  under  which  the  people  are  groaning, 
and  the  want  of  statesmanship  apparent  in  the  framing  of  legislation  con 
fessedly  powerless  for  good  unless  supplemented  by  further  legislation, 
are  chargeable  to  the  Republican  party,  and  the  Republican  party  alone." 1 

\ 

This  is  not  my  ideal  of  patriotic  statesmanship.  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  say  that,  if  the  majority  of  this  House  propose  a 
measure  which  will  bring  prosperity  to  this  country  and  restore 
the  ancient  standard  of  values,  I  will  go  with  them  heart  and 
soul,  if  the  measure  would  give  you  a  quarter  of  a  million  of 
votes.  I  am  amazed  that  men  should  stand  up  here  on  great 
questions  of  this  sort,  and  make  it  a  matter  of  first  inquiry 
which  party  may  be  helped  or  hurt  by  it. 

1  Congressional  Record,  March  16,  1876,  p.  1764. 


PHASES  OF  THE  SILVER  QUESTION.  333 

I  pass  from  that  consideration  to  another  criticism.  My 
friend  from  New  York  says  that  the  only  reason  why  there  is 
any  possibility  of  issuing  this  silver  successfully  is  not  because 
of  the  wisdom  of  the  Republican  party,  but  because  of  a  streak 
of  good  luck  they  have  had.  He  says  that  they  have  stumbled 
upon  two  items  of  good  luck,  —  the  discovery  of  the  great  Bo 
nanza  mines,  and  the  demonetization  of  silver  in  Germany.  Let 
me  ask  my  friend  if  he  has  carefully  read  the  history  of  this 
matter?  I  turn  to  the  Congressional  Record,  and  read  a  para 
graph  from  the  speech  of  my  friend  Senator  Sherman,  on  the 
22d  of  December,  1874,  when  the  resumption  bill  was  reported. 

"  The  first  section  of  the  bill  provides  for  the  resumption  of  specie 
payments  on  the  fractional  currency.  It  is  confined  to  that  subject  alone. 
It  so  happens  that  at  this  particular  period  of  time  the  state  of  the  money 
market,  the  state  of  the  demand  for  silver  bullion,  and  more  especially 
the  recent  action  of  the  German  Empire,  which  has  demonetized  silver 
and  thus  cheapened  that  product,  enables  us  now,  without  any  loss  of 
revenue,  without  any  sacrifice,  to  enter  the  market  for  the  purchase  of 
bullion,  and  resume  specie  payments  on  our  fractional  currency."  l 

He  then  went  on  to  say  that  our  fractional  currency  and  sub 
sidiary  silver  were  almost  on  a  level  of  value.  There  was  no 
luck  about  that.  The  demonetization  of  silver  in  Germany  had 
taken  place  two  years  before  that  time.  The  Bonanza  mines 
had  been  discovered  long  before.  It  was  a  plain  matter  of  fact, 
well  known  at  the  time  and  announced  by  the  author  of  the  bill. 
Where  is  the  luck? 

MR.  HEWITT.     How  was  it  six  weeks  afterward  ? 

As  a  matter  of  course  fluctuations  followed,  which  it  was 
easily  foreseen  might  follow.  But  I  have  quoted  these  remarks 
by  Senator  Sherman  to  show  my  friend  from  New  York  that  it 
was  not  a  matter  of  mere  blind  luck,  as  he  stated. 

Now  I  call  attention,  in  the  next  place,  to  what  seems  to  be 
the  Malakoff  of  my  friends  on  the  other  side,  especially  the 
gentleman  from  New  York,  namely,  the  question  of  economy ; 
and  in  this  I  observe  that  there  is  another  Bonanza  besides 
silver.  The  gentleman  from  New  York  called  for  bids  from 
two  corporations  to  see  whether  we  cannot  get  the  work  done 
cheaper  than  it  is  being  done  in  the  Treasury,  and  these  two 
bids  are  printed  in  his  speech ;  one  bank-note  company  saying 
1  Congressional  Record,  Dec.  22,  1874,  p.  194. 


334          PHASES  OF  THE   SILVER    QUESTION. 

they  can  do  the  work  for  a  round  million  of  dollars ;  the  other 
saying  they  can  do  it  for  perhaps  $950,000 ;  and  then  he  at 
tempts  to  show  we  are  paying  $1,410,000  for  the  same  work. 
For  what  work?  The  work  of  the  gentleman's  two  bank-note 
companies?  By  no  means.  Did  the  gentleman  suppose  that 
the  printing  and  engraving  of  these  notes  was  the  whole  cost 
of  the  fractional  currency?  By  no  means.  What  more?  We 
have  a  great  bureau  in  the  Treasury  where  these  notes  have  to 
be  counted,  recounted,  and  counted  again.  We  have  a  bureau 
in  New  York  to  gather  up  these  very  fractional  notes,  and  twelve 
men  are  in  the  employ  of  the  United  States  for  the  sole  purpose 
of  sorting,  counting,  and  returning  to  the  Treasury  the  filthy, 
worn-out  fractional  currency.  We  have  eight  more  men  in 
Boston  for  that  purpose ;  five  or  six  more  in  Cincinnati ;  and  in 
all  the  Subtreasuries  of  the  United  States  we  keep  a  force  of 
men  employed  on  this  very  business.  But  what  is  the  $1,410,000 
of  which  the  gentleman  from  New  York  speaks?  I  have  here 
an  official  paper  from  the  Treasury  Department  which  gives 
$1,082,521  as  the  expense  incurred  last  year  by  the  bureau  to 
do  the  engraving  and  printing, we  furnishing  the  paper;  not  the 
paper  of  commerce  on  which  the  bank-note  companies  would 
print,  but  our  distinctive  paper,  which  is  a  safeguard  against 
counterfeiting,  and  more  expensive  than  that  of  those  bank-note 
companies.  The  gentleman  will  find,  on  a  full  examination  of 
the  facts,  that  the  work  is  done  cheaper  in  the  Treasury  than 
his  bank-note  companies  do  it.  Then  there  is  the  expense  in 
curred  for  counters  in  the  currency  division,  $60,000;  $65,000 
for  the  same  purpose  in  the  Register's  office;  $181,000  in  the 
Treasurer's  office ;  and  the  expense  of  express  charges  on  frac 
tional  currency  to  and  from  the  Treasurer's  office,  $20,000 
^rnore. 

[Here  Mr.  Garfield  submitted  a  statement  of  the  expense  of  preparing, 
issuing,  and  redeeming  the  fractional  currency  of  the  United  States  for 
the  fiscal  year  1875.  The  total  is  $1,410,746.95.  He  continued  :  —  ] 

Nearly  half  a  million  of  the  charge  that  this  paper  money 
costs  us  is  not  for  printing  and  engraving,  but  for  handling,  which 
would  necessarily  be  done  if  the  bank-note  companies  had  the 
work.  Therefore,  on  the  score  of  economy,  the  gentleman  has 
mistaken  wholly  and  tota'ly  the  elements  of  the  problem.  If 
the  gentleman  wants  to  give  this  work  to  the  company  that 


PHASES   OF  THE  SILVER    QUESTION.  335 

manufactured  notes  for  the  Southern  Confederacy,  he  cannot 
sustain  his  position  on  the  score  of  economy. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  take  another  view  of  this  question.  Do 
gentlemen  of  the  House  know  what  we  have  paid  out  for  the 
printing  of  fractional  currency?  Do  they  know  how  much  has 
been  issued?  I  will  tell  them.  The  whole  amount  issued  up 
to  the  3Oth  of  June,  1875,  reaches  the  enormous  aggregate  of 
$340,348,179.40. 

The  public  debt  statement  shows  the  amount  of  fractional 
currency  outstanding  at  the  end  of  June  in  each  year  since 
1864.  The  average  outstanding  amount  during  the  last 
twelve  years  has  been  about  thirty- five  millions,  and  the 
amount  outstanding  on  the  first  day  of  the  present  month 
was  $45,124,134.47. 

I  have  also  a  table,  compiled  from  the  official  records,  show 
ing  the  face  value  of  the  fractional  currency  issued  each  year 
since  1869,  and  the  cost  of  printing  and  engraving  it.  This 
table  shows  that  during  the  last  six  years  the  average  amount 
issued  has  been  over  thirty-four  millions  a  year  of  face  value, 
and  the  average  cost  has  been  $955,024.90.  This  of  course 
does  not  include  the  cost  of  assorting,  counting,  and  redeeming. 
Could  we  estimate  the  expense  of  assorting  and  counting  at 
the  various  Subtreasuries,  it  would  swell  the  cost  to  consid 
erably  more  than  a  million  and  a  half  per  year. 

It  costs  us  very  nearly  $2,000,000  a  year  to  keep  up  our 
fractional  currency.  Now,  if  we  issue  silver  in  place  of  this 
fractional  currency,  it  will  stay  out  forty  or  fifty  years  without 
renewal,  and  after  one  issue  it  will  be  half  a  century  before  we 
shall  be  called  upon  to  replace  it  at  all  except  in  cases  of  actual 
loss.  The  gentleman  refuses  to  give  up  a  currency  which  must 
be  renewed  every  ten  months ;  we  propose  a  currency  that  need 
not  be  renewed  for  half  a  century.  He  refuses  to  abandon  a 
currency  that  costs  nearly  $2,000,000  a  year;  we  propose  a 
currency  whicji  costs  but  one  fiftieth  of  that  after  the  expense 
of  the  first  issue  is  borne.  Therefore,  for  the  purpose  of  econ 
omy,  we  should  pass  the  bill  as  reported  by  the  committee. 

But  in  the  second  place  the  gentleman  says  that  this  bill 
will  rob  the  poor  man.  I  will  quote  a  paragraph  from  his 
speech :  — 

"  And  who,  Mr.  Chairman,  will  be  robbed,  and  who  will  get  the  ben 
efit  of  the  fraud?  The  fractional  currency  is  essentially  the  poor  man's 


336  PHASES   OF  THE   SILVER   QUESTION. 

money.  The  bulk  of  it  at  any  one  time  is  in  the  actual  possession  of 
the  laboring  classes  of  this  country.  If  you  take  away  from  them  what 
is  worth  eighty- seven  and  one  half  cents  in  gold  and  replace  it  with 
what  is  worth  only  eighty-two  and  five  eighths  cents,  you  rob  the  work 
ing  classes  of  nearly  five  per  cent,  —  five  cents  out  of  every  dollar  of 
their  scanty  possessions.  No  human  device  can  ever  prevent  debased 
money,  when  redundant,  from  falling  to  its  true  value  as  compared  with 
other  commodities.  The  dollar  may  be  still  called  a  dollar,  but  the 
adulteration  not  apparent  on  its  face  will  betray  itself  in  the  increased 
price  of  every  commodity  which  the  poor  man's  family  consumes."  1 

Mr.  Chairman,  did  anybody  ever  before  hear  that  a  piece  of 
silver,  stamped  with  the  government  stamp  "  half  a  dollar," 
is  not  better  than  a  piece  of  paper  with  "  fifty  cents  "  printed 
on  it?  By  what  logic,  by  what  possible  feat  of  intellect,  can  a 
man  confront  a  proposition  of  that  sort,  and  'not  absolutely 
burst  forth  in  laughter  at  the  absurdity  of  his  own  concep 
tion?  Cheat  the  laboring  man!  Does  not  my  friend  know 
that  this  question  of  the  relation  of  silver  coin  to  gold  coin  is 
two  hundred  years  old  ?  Two  hundred  years  ago  all  the  intelli 
gence  that  Newton  and  Locke  could  bring  to  bear  upon  this  sub 
ject  resulted  in  proving  the  impossibility  of  sustaining  in  equi 
poise  two  standards  of  value,  the  one  silver  and  the  other  gold. 
The  attempt  was  made  to  keep  up  two  standards  of  value, 
one  of  gold,  one  of  silver,  and  it  was  found  utterly  impossible, 
because  the  value  of  the  two  metals  fluctuated  in  the  market; 
and  finally,  after  a  thorough  discussion  of  the  whole  subject, 
the  attempt  was  abandoned.  Some  nations  took  silver  as  their 
standard  of  value,  and  some  took  gold ;  but  almost  all  nations 
have  adopted  one  metal  for  their  standard  coin,  and  another 
metal  for  a  subsidiary  coinage  for  the  sake  of  change.  Most 
nations  have  adopted  gold  as  the  standard  of  value,  and  silver 
as  a  subsidiary  currency.  Why?  They  cannot  so  well  divide 
gold  as  silver  for  small  coin.  The  case  is  well  stated  by  a 
recent  author :  — 

"  There  is  no  law,  statute  or  common,  which  gives  any  private  person, 
company,  or  institution  the  right  to  take  silver  to  the  mint  and  demand 
coin  in  exchange.  Thus  it  is  left  in  the  hands  of  the  treasury  and  the 
mint  to  issue  so  much  and  such  denominations  of  silver  coins  as  they 
may  think  needful  for  the  public  service.  This  state  of  the  law  is  per 
fectly  right,  because,  as  the  silver  coins  are  tokens,  they  cannot  be  got 
rid  of  by  melting  or  exportation  at  their  nominal  values.  If  individuals 
1  Congressional  Record,  March  16,  1876,  p.  1766. 


PHASES  OF  THE  SILVER    QUESTION.  337 

were  free  to  demand  as  much  silver  coin  as  they  liked,  a  surplus  might 
be  thrown  into  circulation  in  years  of  brisk  trade  which  in  a  subsequent 
year  of  depressed  trade  would  lie  upon  people's  hands." 

The  United  States  has  also  adopted  this  wise  policy,  and  our 
silver  coin  is  to-day  under  our  laws  more  valuable  than  that  of 
any  other  nation.  Here  is  a  table  showing  the  relative  valua 
tion  of  the  subsidiary  silver  coinage  of  different  nations :  — 

Legal  Ratios  of  Value  of  Gold  and  Silver. 

United  States J4-95  to  x 

Great  Britain 14.2    to 

France 13.2    to 

Germany 13.9    to 

Latin  States  Coinage  Union 13.2    to 

Scandinavian  States  Coinage  Union ....  14.8    to 

France,  Belgium,  Italy,  and  Switzerland,  making  the  Latin 
Union,  coin  a  silver  five-franc  piece  on  the  basis  or  ratio  of  15  *4 
to  I,  which  is  an  unlimited  tender  in  payment;  all  denominations 
below  it  are  subsidiary  and  limited. 

The  United  States  silver  coinage  is  a  little  more  valuable  than 
the  silver  coinage  of  the  other  countries  named. 

Now,  the  gentleman  from  New  York  must  make  his  attack 
against  England  and  against  all  the  countries  of  the  world 
which  follow  the  wise  practice  of  the  last  two  hundred  years,  if 
he  raises  the  question  of  injury  to  the  poor  man. 

MR.  HEWITT.     Will  it  always  retain  that  relative  value  ? 

We  can  always  keep  our  silver  coin  in  proper  relation  to 
gold. 

MR.  HEWITT.     Will  you  redeem  it  in  gold  ? 

It  is  a  legal  tender  for  the  payment  of  debts  up  to  five 
dollars.  For  all  ordinary  purposes  of  change,  it  does  exactly 
what  a  gold  dollar  would  do. 

The  wisdom  of  the  last  two  hundred  years  has  taught  the 
nations  that  this  is  the  wisest  thing  to  do. 

The  only  possible  danger  I  can  see  in  this  measure  is,  that, 
should  Congress  so  behave  as  to  depreciate  the  value  of  green 
backs  until  gold  should  reach  a  premium  of  120,  the  silver 
might  become  more  valuable  than  the  greenbacks  and  be  driven 
out  of  circulation.  But  I  remind  gentlemen  of  the  fact,  that, 

VOL.    II.  22 


338  PHASES   OF  THE  SILVER   QUESTION. 

notwithstanding  all  this  fluctuation,  the  premium  on  gold  has 
not  been  so  high  as  120  since  1871,  and  we  ought  to  have 
enough  faith  in  ourselves,  and  enough  determination  not  to 
permit  such  unwise  legislation  as  shall  make  this  bill  dangerous 
in  that  respect. 

Our  friend  from  New  York  says  that  this  will  be  no  step 
toward  specie  payments.  He  seems  to  prefer  paper  for  our 
fractional  currency.  I  do  not  know  that  my  friend  means  to 
stand  by  that ;  but  his  language  seems  to  imply  that  he  wants 
us  to  resume  in  gold,  and  have  a  paper  fractional  cur 
rency. 

MR.  HEWITT.     I  mean  just  the  opposite. 

I  hope  he  did  mean  the  opposite,  but  he  did  not  say  it. 

MR.   HEWITT.     I  certainly  did  say  it. 

In  order  to  do  the  gentleman  no  injustice,  I  quote  in  full  what 
he  did  say,  and  it  is  as  follows :  "  But  I  deny  that  the  substitu 
tion  of  subsidiary  silver  coin  for  the  fractional  currency  has  any 
thing  to  do  with  the  resumption  of  specie  payments.  It  is  the 
substitution  of  metallic  tokens  for  paper  ones.  The  only  specie 
resumption  known  to  the  law  or  to  the  great  commercial  nations 
is  resumption  in  gold.  For  minor  coins,  copper,  nickel,  silver, 
or  paper  may  be  used ;  and  their  purchasing  power,  whenever 
they  may  be  in  excess  of  the  demand,  will  be  measured  by  what 
they  will  produce  in  gold." 

The  remainder  of  what  I  desire  to  say  is  to  this  point :  Will 
this  measure  be  a  step  towards  the  resumption  of  specie  pay 
ments  ?  If  not,  then  I  am  opposed  to  it,  however  economical 
it  might  be.  If  it  is  a  fair  step  towards  specie  payments,  then  I 
am  in  favor  of  it,  however  costly  it  may  be.  Now,  what  is  the 
fact?  Does  any  gentleman  believe  that  we  shall  ever  have  re 
sumption  of  specie  payments  until  we  get  back  to  our  old  stan 
dard  of  gold,  with  a  subsidiary  coinage  of  silver?  Are  we  not 
bound  to  do  that?  And  if  we  cannot  do  both  at  once,  shall  we 
show  our  unwillingness  to  do  the  one  thing  that  it  is  possible  for 
us  to  do?  That  is  the  whole  question.  We  have  now  coined, 
in  pursuance  of  law,  $14,000,000  of  subsidiary  silver  coin,  upon 
which  we  have  lost  nothing.  The  gentleman  from  New  York 
says  we  have  lost  $1,000,000.  Even  counted  in  gold,  the  differ 
ence  is  only  $222,000,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  following  state 
ment  from  the  Director  of  the  Mint. 


PHASES   OF  THE  SILVER    QUESTION.  339 

"  The  amount  of  silver  bullion  purchased  under  the  act  of  January  1 4, 
1875,  has  been  11,130,072  standard  ounces,  at  an  average  rate  or  price 
of  109  cents  per  ounce  standard  in  gold  coin,  the  cost  of  which  bullion 
was  $12,239,643.  The  present  rate  in  London  is  54^  pence,  which  cor 
responds  with  107  cents  per  ounce  United  States  standard,  and  makes  the 
depreciation  of  the  stock  in  the  hands  of  the  government  about  $222,000, 
and  not  $1,000,000,  as  stated  by  Mr.  Hewitt.  With  silver  at  107  cents 
per  ounce  United  States  standard,  a  dollar  in  subsidiary  silver  coins  is  of 
the  gold  value  of  eighty-six  cents.  Gold  was  114^  yesterday,  which 
makes  the  greenback  dollar  eighty-seven  cents  and  three  mills." 

What  shall  we  do  with  that  amount  of  silver  coin  ?  Shall  we 
turn  back  on  our  tracks  and  refuse  to  issue  it,  or  shall  we  issue 
it  in  place  of  the  perishable,  wasting,  uncertain  paper  currency 
that  now  circulates  for  change?  The  gentleman  from  Missouri l 
has  shown  that  there  has  been  lost  by  wastage  in  the  hands  of 
the  people  about  $15,000,0x30  of  this  paper  fractional  currency. 
And  these  very  poor  laboring  people,  for  whom  the  gentleman 
from  New  York  has  so  much  sympathy,  have  suffered  all,  or 
nearly  all,  that  loss. 

Now  shall  we  put  into  their  hands  a  currency  less  perishable? 
Shall  we  familiarize  the  American  people  with  the  use  of  coin,  — 
of  the  coin  recognized  under  our  old  laws,  our  laws  before  the 
war?  Or  shall  we  put  off  this  opportunity  which  is  now  open 
to  us  to  educate  the  people  by  putting  in  their  hands  $25,000,000 
of  coined  money,  of  lawful  coin,  although  it  is  subsidiary  coin, 
and  not  up  to  the  full  value  of  gold?  It  is  a  legal  tender,  and 
is  lawful  coin  of  the  country.  Shall  we  do  that  much  toward 
resumption  of  specie  payments? 

MR.  KELLEY.     Legal  tenders  to  what  amount? 

To  the  amount  of  five  dollars.  Shall  we  do  that  much  now, 
when  we  can,  when  we  have  already  half  done  it?  We  have 
half  enough  silver  coin  ready  to  be  issued  for  the  purpose  of 
supplying  what  everybody  knows  will  be  a  sufficient  amount 
of  change  for  the  business  of  the  country.  And  if  we  do  just 
as  much  more  as  we  have  already  done,  we  shall  have  made 
the  substitution  complete.  We  can  then  dismiss  an  army  of 
clerks,  and  counters,  and  workmen,  who  are  now  making  our 
paper  fractional  currency,  and  in  the  common  school  of  the 
silver  currency  we  can  begin  the  work  of  educating  our  peo 
ple  up  to  the  gold  standard  when  that  comes. 

i  Mr.  Wells. 


340  PHASES   OF  THE   SILVER    QUESTION. 

I  hope  we  shall  not  change  our  policy,  —  that  we  shall  not 
here  show  our  unwillingness  to  resume  specie  payments,  when 
we  can  hurt  nobody,  when  we  shall  be  wronging  nobody,  when 
we  shall  not  be  affecting  injuriously  any  great  interest  of  the 
country.  No  one  pretends  that  this  will  produce  any  shock  to 
business.  The  stock  argument  used  against  our  resuming  pay 
ments  in  gold  does  not  apply  to  this.  It  is  safe,  easy,  and 
economical ;  it  is  honest ;  it  is  keeping  good  faith  for  us  so  to 
do.  I  dare  not  vote  against  it,  for  in  so  doing  I  should  take 
a  step  toward  repudiation ;  I  should  aid  in  breaking  the  public 
faith.  I  shall  vote  for  this  measure,  whatever  its  origin,  Demo 
cratic  or  Republican. 


JUNE  28,  1876,  pending  a  bill  authorizing  the  minting  of  an  additional 
amount  of  subsidiary  silver  coin,  the  House  adopted  this  amendment, 
proposed  by  Mr.  Landers  :  "  And  be  it  further  provided,  That  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury  is  directed  to  authorize  the  coinage  of  the  standard 
silver  dollar  of  the  same  weight  and  fineness  in  use  January  i,  1861  ;  and 
said  dollar  shall  be  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  all  debts,  public  and 
private."  The  Senate  disagreed,  and  the  bill  went  to  a  conference  com 
mittee.  On  the  1 3th  of  July,  upon  the  question  of  adopting  the  confer 
ence  report  (which  did  not  contain  the  "Landers  amendment"),  Mr. 
Garfield  spoke  as  follows  :  — 

I  CAN  hardly  conceive  a  situation  in  which  the  House  could 
be  brought  more  directly  face  to  face  with  what  seems  to  pre 
sent  on  the  one  hand  public  honor,  and  on  the  other  the  deep 
est  public  disgrace,  than  in  the  alternative  propositions  now 
presented  to  the  House  in  this  report.  Everything  in  the  way 
of  controversy  hinges  upon  the  proposed  amendment  of  the 
gentleman  from  Indiana.1  It  is  claimed  that,  by  the  terms  of 
the  act  of  1869,  it  would  be  lawful  for  us  to  pay  the  public 
debt  in  silver  dollars  such  as  might  have  been  coined  under 
the  law  as  it  stood  in  1861. 

Now  I  desire  to  recall  to  the  mind  of  the  House  the  letter  and 
the  spirit  of  that  law.  After  all  the  doubt  and  the  turbulent 
excitement  about  what  the  actual  obligation  of  the  nation  was  in 
regard  to  the  public  debt,  the  first  act  of  Congress  approved  by 
President  Grant  made  a  solemn  declaration  designed  to  put  all 
those  doubts  to  rest  It  was  declared  by  Congress  that  "  the 

1  Mr.  Landers. 


PHASES   OF  THE   SILVER    QUESTION.  341 

faith  of  the  United  States  is  solemnly  pledged  to  the  pay 
ment —  "  In  what?  Not  in  silver,  not  in  gold,  not  in  coin,  but 
"  in  coin  or  its  equivalent  of  all  the  obligations  of  the  United 
States  not  bearing  interest,  known  as  United  States  notes,  and  of 
all  the  interest-bearing  obligations  of  the  United  States,  except 
in  cases  where  the  law  authorizing  the  issue  of  any  such  obliga 
tion  has  expressly  provided  that  the  same  may  be  paid  in  law 
ful  money,  or  other  currency  than  gold  and  silver." 

The  declaration  there  was  that  the  payment  of  all  these 
national  obligations  not  specifically  currency  obligations  was  to 
be  in  "  coin  or  its  equivalent."  Now,  what  did  Congress  mean? 
What  were  our  laws  before  1861?  Why,  Mr.  Speaker,  since 
1834  we  have  had  one  standard,  a  dollar,  and  we  have  by  law 
embodied  it  in  two  metals,  gold  and  silver.  But  all  the  time,  in 
order  to  have  one  standard,  not  two,  we  have*  sought  to  make 
the  coins  of  the  two  metals  conform  to  the  one  standard ;  keep 
ing  the  amount  of  metal  in  one  so  adjusted  to  the  amount  of 
metal  in  the  other  that  a  dollar  of  gold  should  be  equivalent  to 
a  dollar  of  silver.  Every  hour  that  we  had  a  double  standard  it 
was  double  only  on  the  ground  of  equivalency ;  and  when,  by 
reason  of  the  shifting  value  of  the  two  metals  in  reference  to 
each  other,  the  silver  dollar  and  the  gold  dollar  have  varied  from 
each  other  in  value,  Congress  has  undertaken  to  equalize  them 
by  increasing  the  amount  of  metal  in  one,  or  decreasing  the 
amount  of  metal  in  the  other.  We  always  sought  to  avoid  the 
evil  of  having  two  kinds  of  dollar,  one  worth  more  than  the  other. 
And  when  Congress  promised  to  pay  in  coin  it  was  a  promise 
to  pay  gold  coin  or  silver  coin  of  equal  value  with  the  same 
nominal  sum  in  gold.  I  cannot  believe  that  this  statement  will 
be  denied. 

Congress  saw,  a  few  years  ago,  that  it  was  going  to  be  difficult 
to  keep  up  the  equality  or  equivalency  of  the  dollar  in  the  two 
metals ;  so  it  dropped  one  of  the  metals,  except  as  a  subsidiary 
coin,  and  left  the  national  standard  of  value  embodied  in  the 
other,  namely,  in  gold.  Now,  the  fact  that  in  1873  we  adopted 
a  device  to  preserve  the  constancy  of  the  value  of  the  dollar 
does  not  by  any  means  signify  that  we  meant  to  change  the  old 
obligation  so  that  men  to  whom  the  government  owes  money 
can  lawfully  be  paid  in  money  of  different  value. 

By  monetary  changes  abroad,  and  by  mining  developments 
at  home,  causing  fluctuations  in  the  relative  values  of  the  two 


342  PHASES   OF  THE  SILVER    QUESTION. 

metals,  it  happens  that  to-day  silver  is  so  depreciated  that,  if  it 
were  now  a  legal  standard  of  payment  of  all  amounts,  the  em 
ployees  and  other  creditors  of  the  government  could  be  com 
pelled  to  accept  seventy-nine  cents  as  full  payment  for  every 
dollar  due  them,  and  thus  they  would  be  swindled  to  the  extent 
of  twenty-one  cents  on  the  dollar  by  being  compelled  to  receive 
silver  rather  than  gold,  or  to  the  extent  of  ten  cents  on  the 
dollar  by  paying  them  silver  rather  than  Treasury  notes.  And 
the  most  amazing  feature  of  the  case  is  that  some  good  men, 
holding  these  places  of  high  responsibility,  do  not  see  that  this 
would  be  as  dishonest  as  it  would  be  ruinous  in  its  results  to  the 
credit  of  the  nation. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  we  are  solemnly  bound  by  the  act 
of  1869  to  pay  in  coin  or  its  equivalent.  Dare  any  man  say  that 
we  can  pay  in  this  so  greatly  depreciated  silver,  and  really  obey 
the  law  of  equivalency  which  was  the  basis  and  spirit  of  the 
statute  of  1869?  He  denies  the  principle  of  equivalency  who 
proposes  to  pay  in  this  silver  coin.  He  violates  the  law  who 
violates  the  essential  object  of  it,  —  equivalency. 

If  you  insist  on  paying  in  silver,  then  I  insist  that  your  silver 
dollar  must  be  equivalent  to  your  gold  dollar.  Do  gentlemen 
consent  to  maintain  equivalency  in  the  two  standards,  and  then 
pay  in  silver?  Manifestly  not.  Their  incentive  is  gone  the 
moment  they  are  asked  to  pay  one  hundred  cents  on  a  dollar. 
Some  one  has  said  that  there  is  an  innate  desire  in  the  human 
mind  to  cheat  somebody.  A  great  minister  said  that  there 
were  two  things  in  human  nature  which,  when  united,  made 
iniquity  complete,  —  one  was  the  desire  to  do  a  dishonorable 
thing,  and  the  other  was  the  opportunity  to  do  it.  It  has  hap 
pened  in  the  fluctuations  of  these  metals  that  there  is  now  a 
notable  opportunity  to  cheat  several  millions  of  men  by  adopting 
the  baser  metal  as  the  standard  of  payment,  and  thus  accom 
plishing  a  swindle  on  so  grand  a  scale  as  to  make  the  achieve 
ment  illustrious.  By  the  proposed  measure  one  fifth  of  the 
enormous  aggregate  of  public  and  private  debts  can  be  wiped 
out  as  with  a  sponge.  This  nation  owes  $2,100,000,000,  and 
private  citizens  of  the  United  States  probably  owe  $2,500,000,000, 
possibly  more.  At  the  present  moment  the  relation  of  debtor 
and  creditor  in  the  United  States  involves  nearly  $5,000,000,000. 
It  is  proposed  by  the  amendment  of  the  gentleman  from  Indiana 
that,  at  one  fell  stroke,  one  fifth  of  all  this  enormous  sum  shall 


PHASES   OF  THE   SILVER    QUESTION.          343 

be  wiped  off,  repudiated,  and  that  this  process  shall  be  called 
honest  legislation !  Since  I  have  been  in  public  life  I  have 
never  known  any  proposition  that  contained  so  many  of  the 
essential  elements  of  vast  rascality,  of  colossal  swindling,  as  this. 
I  do  not  charge  that  such  is  the  purpose  of  the  gentleman ;  yet 
such,  in  my  judgment,  is  the  effect  of  the  amendment  proposed. 
But,  aside  from  the  political  ethics  involved  in  this  scheme,  we 
should  consider  its  effects  upon  the  business  of  the  country. 

Gentlemen  may  remember  the  financial  shock  of  1837,  the 
later  shock  of  1857,  and  that  still  later  in  1873.  Conceive  them 
all  united  in  one  vast  crash,  and  the  financial  ruin,  the  overthrow 
of  business,  would  be  light  in  comparison  with  the  shock  which 
would  follow  if  the  provision  here  proposed  were  adopted.  By 
a  principle  improperly  called  Gresham's  Law,  for  it  was  known 
as  far  back  as  the  days  of  Aristophanes,1  where  two  legal  stan 
dards  of  value  are  put  in  circulation  in  the  same  country,  the 
less  valuable  always  drives  out  the  more  valuable.  Put  in 
operation  the  provision  now  suggested,  and  all  our  gold  coin 
will  leave  the  country  as  fast  as  it  can  be  carried  abroad.  Do 
this,  and  a  revolution  in  our  monetary  affairs,  utterly  unparal 
leled  in  the  history  of  our  nation,  will  follow.  The  gentleman 
from  Pennsylvania,2  in  his  remarks,  gave  the  key  to  the  philoso 
phy  of  this  proposed  legislation.  "  Why,"  said  he,  "  what  does 
a  man  want  to  do  with  silver  when  he  can  have  something  made 
of  white  metal  that  the  thief  will  not  care  to  steal  ?  "  What  is 
the  meaning  of  that?  It  is  that  he  wants  money  so  cheap  and 
so  valueless  that  nobody  will  care  to  steal  it. 

MR.  KELLEY.  I  was  speaking,  not  of  money,  but  of  household 
utensils. 

It  amounts  simply  to  the  grim  summary  of  Thomas  Carlyle, 
the  theory  of  "  cheap  and  nasty,"  —  quantity  at  the  expense  of 
quality,  glittering  sham  at  the  expense  of  reality. 


ON  the  i3th  of  December,  1876,  "A  Bill  to  utilize  the  Product  of  Gold 
and  Silver  Mines,  and  for  other  Purposes,"  introduced  by  Mr.  Bland  of 
Missouri  at  the  previous  session  of  the  Forty-fourth  Congress,  was  pending. 
The  House  adopted  the  following  substitute,  and  then  passed  the  bill :  — 

"  That  there  shall  be,  from  time  to  time,  coined  at  the  mints  of  the 

1  See  Macaulay,  History  of  England,  Vol.  IV.  p.  495  (Harper's  edition). 

2  Mr.  Kelley. 


344          PHASES   OF  THE  SILVER    QUESTION. 

United  States,  silver  dollars  of  the  weight  of  412^  grains  standard  silver 
to  the  dollar,  as  provided  for  in  the  act  of  January  18,  1837  ;  and  that 
said  dollar  shall  be  a  legal  tender  for  all  debts,  public  and  private,  except 
where  payment  of  gold  coin  is  required  by  law." 

This  bill  was  never  acted  on  by  the  Senate.  The  following  are  Mr. 
Garfield's  remarks :  — 

MR.  SPEAKER,  —  I  do  not  think  I  shall  use  the  whole  of  the 
ten  minutes  granted  me,  but  only  enough  to  state  the  reasons 
which  will  guide  my  vote  on  this  bill. 

I  suppose  that  the  officer  of  the  United  States  army  who  had 
charge  of  the  excavations  at  Hell  Gate,  an  hour  before  the  ex 
plosion,  could  have  given  you  the  lay  of  the  ground  on  every 
square  foot  of  Hell  Gate  ledge,  and  the  depth  of  the  water  at  all 
stages  of  the  tide,  because,  by  years  of  patient  study,  he  had 
learned  all  about  it ;  but  if  he  had  pretended  to  tell  any  one,  just 
after  the  explosion  occurred,  how  the  ledge  lay,  how  deep  the 
water  was,  and  what  the  situation  of  the  channel  was  in  regard 
to  navigation,  he  would  have  proved  himself  a  charlatan  and  a 
cheat.  After  those  tons  of  dynamite  had  exploded  under  the 
ledge,  there  was  a  new  set  of  conditions ;  and  like  a  sensible 
officer  he  would  have  said  to  all  comers,  "  I  must  put  down  my 
sounding  apparatus ;  I  must  make  a  careful  exploration  of  this 
ledge  before  I  can  tell  you  anything  accurately  or  definitely  of 
the  situation."  In  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  he  was  able  to  do 
that,  and  do  it  intelligently  and  thoroughly. 

I  have  stated  this  as  an  illustration  of  my  view  of  the  pres 
ent  state  of  the  silver  question.  For  a  long  time  the  relation 
between  silver  and  gold  had  been  very  accurately  understood, 
and  had  continued  without  great  and  violent  fluctuations. 
These  two  metals  had  been  used  by  the  governments  of  the 
world,  in  some  definitely  ascertained  proportions,  as  the  basis 
for  standard  coin ;  and  men  knew  with  tolerable  accuracy  their 
relative  values.  But  within  the  last  few  years,  and  notably 
within  the  last  few  months,  there  has  been  an  explosion  un 
der  silver  as  it  stands  related  to  gold,  —  an  explosion  as  much 
greater  than  the  one  under  Hell  Gate  ledge  as  the  continents 
of  Europe,  Asia,  and  America  are  greater  than  Hell  Gate 
itself.  Now,  while  the  fragments  of  this  mighty  explosion  are 
falling  in  confusion  all  over  the  world,  while  the  upheaval  is 
still  going  on,  and  while  we  are  still  involved  in  the  uncertainty 
which  it  has  caused  everywhere,  —  when  we  have  sent  out  our 


PHASES  OF  THE   SILVER    QUESTION.          345 

explorers  l  by  the  wise  order  of  both  houses  of  Congress  to 
make  soundings  and  report  what  they  find,  —  even  while  we 
are  waiting  for  their  coming  (and  they  tell  us  we  may  expect 
them  soon),  —  it  is  proposed  in  the  hot  haste  of  a  two  hours' 
debate,  under  the  tyranny  of  the  previous  question,  the  two 
hours  being  parcelled  out  into  fragments  of  five  or  ten  minutes 
apiece,  —  it  is  proposed  in  this  chamber  that  we  settle  this 
world-wide  question  and  determine  it  to-day. 

If  I  had  no  other  reason  to  urge  against  this  bill,  this  to  my 
mind  would  be  overwhelming  and  unanswerable.  Who,  in  this 
brief  space  of  two  hours,  can  go  into  the  philosophy  of  the 
great  revolution  that  has  occurred?  Who  can  state  its  causes 
calmly  and  dispassionately?  Who  can  point  out  the  probable 
future  course  of  silver  in  the  markets  of  the  world?  We  know 
that  a  year  or  two  ago  it  was  bought  and  sold  at  6oJ  pence  per 
ounce;  that  on  the  I3th  of  July  last  it  had,  by  extraordinary 
fluctuations,  tumbled  down  almost  to  46  pence  per  ounce;  and 
now  again,  faster  than  the  thermometer  indicates  the  changes 
of  temperature,  it  is  up  again  to  57.  Yet  on  this  rising  and 
falling  tide,  in  the  midst  of  fluctuations  almost  equal  to  the 
political  passions  of  a  Presidential  campaign,  we  are  asked  to 
settle  for  years  this  question,  when  the  intelligence  that  we  re 
quire  is  near  at  hand,  but  not  yet  received ;  we  must  settle  it 
before  we  hear.  It  is  said  that  Rhadamanthus  and  his  brother 
judges  in  the  lower  world,  when  the  accused  was  brought  before 
them,  first  castigated  him,  then  made  him  confess  that  he  was 
properly  punished,  and  then  heard  his  case.  Now  perhaps  that 
is  a  mode  of  procedure  fit  for  the  court  below,  but  it  is  not  a 
method  fit  for  the  House  of  Representatives. 

What  I  ask  for,  Mr.  Speaker,  is  information  and  time  for 
deliberation  before  we  proceed  to  settle  this  great  question. 
There  is  no  emergency  pressing  us  to  a  decision  to-day.  I  am 
free  to  say,  if  I  am  forced  to  a  choice  of  evils,  that  I  like  the 
substitute  better  than  the  original  bill.  I  have  no  objection 
to  voting  for  the  substitute,  but  I  shall  vote  against  the  bill, 
whether  the  substitute  be  adopted  or  not,  as  the  case  now 
stands. 

Let  me  call  the  attention  of  gentlemen  to  another  fact.  Can 
they  say  this  country  is  going  to  get  any  good  out  of  this  bill? 

1  The  Silver  Commission,  created  by  joint  resolution  of  August  15,  1876;  re 
ported,  March  2,  1877. 


346          PHASES   OF  THE   SILVER    QUESTION. 

Pass  it,  and  what  can  be  done?  Every  man  who  owns  silver 
bullion  in  America,  or  who  can  buy  it  from  abroad,  can  take  it 
by  the  car-load  to  the  Mint  of  the  United  States,  and  have  it 
coined  under  our  laws  without  cost  to  himself,  and  can  take 
away  in  silver  coin  all  the  difference  between  the  value  of  his 
bullion  and  the  nominal  value  of  his  coin.  The  owner  of  the 
bullion  will  make  the  difference,  and  the  government  make 
nothing.  Why  should  we  give  away  all  the  difference,  which 
in  July  last  would  have  been  thirty  per  cent,  to  the  accidental 
owner  of  bullion,  or  the  one  who  chooses  to  speculate  in  it? 
Why  should  we  offer  so  great  a  premium  to  domestic  and  for 
eign  speculators  in  metals,  and  forbid  our  national  treasury  to 
have  any  share  in  it?  And  where  will  gentlemen  find  any  good 
coming  to  the  people  by  this  policy? 

There  is  no  time  in  this  brief  debate  to  discuss  the  philoso 
phy  of  a  single  or  double  standard.  I  am  willing  that  in  some 
way,  properly  restricted,  we  shall  enlarge  the  scope  of  our  silver 
coinage.  I  hope  the  Silver  Commission  may  show  us  how  this 
can  safely  be  done.  But  I  am  unwilling  to  undertake  so  grave 
a  work  without  full  information  and  deliberation. 

I  wish  to  say,  in  the  remaining  moments  left  to  me,  that  it  is 
impossible,  within  the  brief  space  we  have,  even  to  go  carefully 
through  the  history  of  the  legislation  which  has  brought  us 
where  we  are.  That  legislation  has  been  denounced  as  a  "  legis 
lative  trick,"  as  a  delusion,  as  something  intended  to  cheat  the 
American  people.  I  will  not  even  on  this  occasion  go  so  far 
as  the  gentleman  who  advocated,  if  he  did  not  introduce,  the 
original  bill ;  but  let  me  read  from  the  Congressional  Globe  of 
April  9,  1872,  the  reason  given  by  him  for  its  passage.  I  read 
the  language  of  my  friend  from  Pennsylvania,1  who  now  sits 
near  me :  — 

"  I  wish  to  ask  the  gentleman  who  has  just  spoken  2  if  he  knows  of 
any  government  in  the  world  which  makes  its  subsidiary  coinage  of  full 
value  ?  The  silver  coin  of  England  is  ten  per  cent  below  the  value  of 
gold  coin.  And  acting  under  the  advice  of  the  experts  of  this  country, 
and  of  England  and  France,  Japan  has  made  her  silver  coinage  within 
the  last  year  twelve  per  cent  below  the  value  of  gold  coin,  and  for  this 
reason  :  //  is  impossible  to  retain  the  double  standard.  The  values  of 
gold  and  silver  continually  fluctuate.  You  cannot  determine  this  year 
what  will  be  the  relative  values  of  gold  and  silver  next  year.  They 
were  15  to  i  a  short  time  ago ;  they  are  16  to  i  now. 

A  Mr.  Kelley.  *  Mr.  Potter. 


PHASES   OF  THE   SILVER    QUESTION.  347 

"  Hence  all  experience  has  shown  that  you  must  have  one  standard 
coin,  which  shall  be  a  legal  tender  for  all  others,  and  then  you  may  pro 
mote  your  domestic  convenience  by  having  a  subsidiary  coinage  of  silver, 
which  shall  circulate  in  all  parts  of  your  country  as  legal  tender  for  a 
limited  amount,  and  be  redeemable  at  its  face  value  by  your  govern 
ment. 

"  But,  sir,  I  again  call  the  attention  of  the  House  to  the  fact  that  the 
gentlemen  who  oppose  this  bill  insist  upon  maintaining  a  silver  dollar 
worth  three  and  a  half  cents  more  than  the  gold  dollar,  and  worth  seven 
cents  more  than  two  half-dollars,  and  that  so  long  as  those  provisions 
remain  you  cannot  keep  silver  coin  in  the  country."  1 

I  have  read  the  whole  of  that  extract,  Mr.  Speaker,  in  order 
to  do  full  justice  to  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  who  re 
ported  the  bill.  Now,  I  am  sure  he  was  not  guilty  of  a  legisla 
tive  trick.  I  am  sure  he  gave  the  House  full  notice  of  what  they 
were  doing,  and  the  reason  why  he  asked  them  to  do  it.  And 
he  gave  as  a  reason,  that  at  that  moment  silver  was  worth  more 
than  gold,  and  you  could  not  keep  two  standards  from  fluctuating 
in  reference  to  each  other.  Just  riow  it  happens  that  silver  is  a 
little  below  the  value  of  gold,  and  gentlemen  will  see,  and  the 
House  will  see,  that  we  must  have  a  basis  for  our  judgment 
broader  than  the  uncertain  chances  of  an  uncertain  market.  I 
have  not  quoted  the  passage  to  affirm  that  I  wholly  disbelieve 
in  the  double  standard,  but  to  show  the  great  difficulty  of  real 
izing  it. 

I  wish  to  make  another  remark.  When  the  report  of  that 
Commission  is  made,  I  hope  it  will  instruct  us  as  to  the  interna 
tional  relations  of  this  question.  One  nation  alone  cannot  put 
silver  up,  or  put  it  down,  and  control  all  the  markets  of  the 
world.  If  seven  or  eight  of  the  leading  nations  of  the  world 
should  form  a  monetary  treaty  on  the  subject,  and  should 
agree  that  silver  be  adopted,  to  be  issued  within  certain  limits  in 
each,  I  have  no  doubt  that  silver  coin  could  be  kept  in  equipoise 
with  gold.  But  let  one  half  of  the  leading  nations  of  the  globe 
drop  the  silver  coinage,  and  let  only  one  like  our  own  insist 
upon  it,  and  then  we  shall  see  a  flood  of  silver  coin  pouring  into 
the  hands  of  our  brokers,  who  would  bring  it  to  the  Mint,  and 
fill  their  own  pockets  with  the  difference  between  silver  bullion 
and  silver  coin. 

1  Congressional  Globe,  April  9,  1872,  p.  2316. 


348  PHASES   OF  THE  SILVER    QUESTION. 

ON  the  2 1  st  of  February,  1878,  the  bill  authorizing  the  recoinage  of  sil 
ver  dollars  was  carried  through  the  House  under  the  previous  question 
without  serious  debate.  In  the  three  minutes  allotted  him  Mr.  Garfield 
made  these  remarks  :  — 

MR.  SPEAKER,  —  Every  man  who  is  opposed  to  the  use  of 
silver  coin  as  a  part  of  the  lawful  currency  of  the  country,  I  dis 
agree  with.  Every  man  who  is  opposed  to  the  actual  legal  use 
of  both  metals,  I  disagree  with.  Every  man  who  is  in  favor  of 
any  bill  that  will  drive  one  of  these  metals  out  of  circulation  and 
give  us  only  the  other  as  money,  with  him  I  disagree.  It  is  a 
matter  of  deep  regret  to  me  that  on  this  greatest  financial  meas 
ure  which  has  come  before  Congress  for  many  years  we  have 
come  down  at  last  to  the  turbulent  scene  of  this  single  hour, 
not  of  deliberation,  but  of  experimenting,  without  debate  or 
opportunity  for  amendment. 

The  amendments  which  have  come  from  the  Senate  are  wise, 
so  far  as  they  go,  and  I  shall  vote  for  them  all.  If  any  man 
could  convince  me  that  the  bill  as  it  now  stands  would  bring  the 
silver  and  gold  dollars  to  a  substantial  equality,  I  would  not  only 
vote  for  it  with  all  my  heart,  but  I  would  vote  against  the  Sen 
ate  amendment  which  forbids  free  coinage.  I  would  endow  the 
two  dollars  with  equality,  and  make  the  coinage  free.  But  no 
adequate  discussion  is  allowed ;  and  we  are  permitted  no  oppor 
tunity  so  to  amend  the  bill  as  to  secure  that  equality. 

Believing,  as  I  do,  —  and  I  shall  rejoice  if  the  future  proves 
me  mistaken,  —  believing,  as  I  do,  that  this  bill  will  not  bring 
the  two  metals  to  equality,  nor  keep  them  there,  that  it  will 
bring  no  relief  to  the  suffering  and  distress  which  now  afflict  the 
country,  that  it  will  seriously  injure  the  public  credit,  and 
thereby  injure  every  citizen,  I  shall  vote  to  lay  the  bill  upon 
the  table. 


ON  the  i  yth  of  May,  1879, tne  House  of  Representatives  having  under 
consideration  "  A  Bill  to  amend  certain  Sections  of  the  Revised  Statutes  of 
the  United  States,  relating  to  Coinage  and  Coin  and  Bullion  Certificates, 
and  for  other  Purposes,"  Mr.  Garfield  made  the  following  remarks.  The 
bill  passed  the  House,  but  no  action  was  had  in  the  Senate. 

MR.  SPEAKER,  —  We  have  probably  never  legislated  on  any 
question  the  influence  of  which  reaches  farther,  both  in  terri- 


PHASES  OF  THE   SILVER   QUESTION.  349 

tory  and  in  time,  and  which  touches  more  interests,  —  more  vital 
interests,  —  than  this  and  similar  bills.  No  man  can  doubt  that 
within  recent  years,  and  notably  within  recent  months,  the  lead 
ing  thinkers  of  the  civilized  world  have  become  alarmed  at  the 
attitude  of  the  two  precious  metals  in  relation  to  each  other; 
and  many  leading  thinkers  are  becoming  clearly  of  the  opinion 
that,  by  some  wise,  judicious  arrangement,  both  the  precious 
metals  must  be  kept  in  service  for  the  currency  of  the  world. 
And  this  opinion  has  been  gaining  ground  within  the  last  six 
months  to  such  an  extent  that  England,  which  for  more  than 
half  a  century  has  stoutly  adhered  to  the  single  gold  standard, 
is  now  seriously  meditating  how  she  may  harness  both  these 
metals  to  the  monetary  car  of  the  world.  And  yet,  outside 
of  this  Capitol,  I  do  not  this  day  know  of  a  single  great  and 
recognized  advocate  of  bi-metallic  money  who  regards  it  pru 
dent  or  safe  for  any  nation  to  increase  the  coinage  of  silver 
at  the  present  time  largely  beyond  the  limits  fixed  by  exist 
ing  laws.  France  and  the  other  states  of  the  Latin  Union, 
who  have  long  believed  in  bi-metallism,  maintained  it  against 
all  comers,  and  have  done  all  in  their  power  to  advocate  it 
throughout  the  world,  dare  not  coin  a  single  silver  coin,  and 
have  not  done  so  since  1874.  The  most  strenuous  advocates  of 
bi-metallism  in  those  countries  say  it  would  be  ruinous  to  bi 
metallism  for  France  or  the  Latin  Union  to  coin  any  more  silver 
at  present.  The  remaining  stock  of  German  silver  now  for  sale, 
amounting  to  from  forty  to  seventy-five  millions  of  dollars,  is  a 
standing  menace  to  the  exchanges  and  silver  coinage  of  Europe. 
One  month  ago  the  leading  financial  journal  of  London  pro 
posed  that  the  Bank  of  England  buy  one  half  of  the  German 
surplus  and  hold  it  five  years,  on  condition  that  the  German 
government  shall  hold  the  other  half  off  the  market.  The  time 
is  ripe  for  some  wise  and  prudent  arrangement  among  the 
nations  to  save  silver  from  a  disastrous  break-down. 

Yet  we,  who,  during  the  past  two  years,  have  coined  far  more 
silver  dollars  than  we  ever  before  coined  since  the  foundation  of 
the  government,  —  ten  times  as  many  as  we  coined  during  half 
a  century  of  our  national  life,  —  are  to-day  ignoring  and  defying 
the  enlightened,  universal  opinion  of  bi-metallists,  and  saying 
that  the  United  States,  single-handed  and  alone,  can  enter  the 
field  and  settle  the  mighty  issue.  We  are  justifying  the  old 
proverb,  that  "  Fools  rush  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread." 


350          PHASES   OF  THE  SILVER    QUESTION. 

It  is  sheer  madness,  Mr.  Speaker.  I  once  saw  a  dog  on  a 
great  stack  of  hay  which  had  been  floated  out  into  the  wild,  over 
flowing  stream  of  a  river,  with  its  stack-pen  and  foundation  still 
holding  together,  but  ready  to  be  wrecked.  For  a  little  while 
the  dog  appeared  to  be  perfectly  happy.  His  hay-stack  was 
there  and  the  pen  around  it,  and  he  seemed  to  think  the  world 
bright,  and  his  happiness  secure,  while  the  sunshine  fell  softly 
on  his  head  and  his  hay.  But  by  and  by  he  began  to  discover 
that  the  house  and  the  barn,  and  their  surroundings,  were  not 
all  there  as  they  were  when  he  went  to  sleep  the  night  before ; 
and  he  began  to  see  that  he  could  no  longer  command  all  the 
prospect  and  peacefully  dominate  the  scene  as  he  had  done.  So 
with  this  House.  We  assume  to  manage  this  mighty  question 
which  has  been  launched  on  the  wild  current  that  sweeps  over 
the  whole  world,  and  we  bark  from  our  legislative  hay-stacks 
as  though  we  commanded  the  whole  world.  In  the  name  of 
common  sense  and  sanity,  let  us  take  some  account  of  the  flood  ; 
let  us  understand  that  a  deluge  means  something,  and  try,  if  we 
can,  to  get  our  bearings  before  we  undertake  to  settle  the  affairs 
of  all  mankind  by  a  vote  of  this  House. 

To-day  we  are  coining  one  third  of  all  the  silver  that  is  being 
coined  in  the  round  world ;  China  is  coining  another  third  ;  and 
all  other  nations  are  using  the  remaining  one  third  for  subsidiary 
coin.  And  if  we  want  to  take  rank  with  China,  and  part  com 
pany  with  all  the  civilized  nations  of  the  Western  world,  let  us 
pass  this  bill,  and  then  4<  bay  the  moon,"  as  we  float  down  the 
whirling  channel  to  take  our  place  among  the  silver  monometal- 
lists  of  Asia. 

What  this  country  needs,  above  all  other  things,  is  that  this 
Congress  shall  pass  the  appropriation  bills,  adjourn,  and  go 
home,  and  let  the  forces  of  business  and  good  order  and  brother 
hood,  working  in  their  natural  and  orderly  way,  bring  us  into 
light  and  stability  and  peace.  We  want  time  to  adjust  this 
great  international  question.  Now,  while  I  am  speaking,  the 
Executive  is  opening  negotiations  with  all  the  Western  nations, 
to  see  if  there  cannot  be  some  international  arrangement  where 
by  this  question  of  bi-metallism  may  be  wisely  settled ;  and  we 
should  await  the  result. 


PHASES  OF  THE   SILVER    QUESTION.  351 

ON  the  25th  of  May,  1880,  this  paragraph  in  the  Sundry  Civil  Appro 
priation  Bill  was  considered  in  the  House  of  Representatives :  "  To 
enable  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  provide  suitable  accommodation 
for  the  storage  of  coin,  $100,000."  The  point  of  order  was  raised  that 
there  was  no  existing  law  under  which  this  appropriation  could  be  made. 
Mr.  Garfield  made  the  following  remarks,  the  last  that  he  ever  made  in 
the  House  of  Representatives. 

MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —  If,  by  a  provision  in  the  Legislative,  Ex 
ecutive,  and  Judicial  Appropriation  Bill,  the  number  of  clerks 
in  any  department  or  bureau  is  increased,  I  take  it  that  no  one 
would  doubt  that  that  provision  would  be  a  sufficient  law  to 
authorize  the  purchase  of  a  sufficient  number  of  desks  for  the 
office  in  which  these  clerks  were  to  do  their  work.  It  would 
not  be  necessary  to  get  a  special  statute  passed  for  the  purchase 
of  an  additional  amount  of  paper,  ink,  and  stationery  to  be  used 
in  the  particular  bureau  in  which  the  additional  clerks  had  been 
appointed  by  authority  of  law. 

We  have  a  law  compelling  the  Director  of  the  Mint  to  coin 
at  least  two  million  silver  dollars  a  month.  We  have  another 
law  which  allows  the  purchase  of  silver  bullion  and  the  issue  of 
certificates  therefor.  Under  those  laws,  the  United  States  this 
day  owns  $64,000,000  in  silver  coin,  dollars  and  fractional  coin, 
and  $4,000,000  of  silver  bullion  besides,  making  $68,000,000  of 
silver  coin  and  bullion,  in  addition  to  the  gold  coin. 

Now,  an  ordinary  car-load  of  concentrated  silver  is  eight  tons. 
We  own  to-day,  and  are  holding  in  our  Subtreasury  buildings, 
two  hundred  and  fifty  car-loads  of  silver  coin  and  silver  bullion. 
The  coinage  for  the  next  three,  four,  or  five  months,  if  addi 
tional  accommodations  are  not  provided,  will  necessarily  have 
to  be  stacked  up  without  protection,  without  a  vault  to  put  it  in, 
without  a  place  even  in  which  to  lock  it  up,  if  the  law  continues 
as  it  now  is.  The  necessity  for  this  appropriation  is  just  as 
manifest  as  the  necessity  for  an  appropriation  for  a  desk,  for  a 
lock  and  key,  or  for  pens,  ink,  and  paper  for  additional  clerks 
authorized  by  law. 

I  do  not  believe  in  the  policy  of  continuing  the  coinage  of 
silver;  but  that  is  not  the  question  now.  The  question  is  upon 
the  point  of  order ;  and  I  say  that,  if  you  will  buy  horses,  you 
must  have  stables  for  them. 

I  do  not  desire  to  prolong  this  debate.  We  are  likely  to  be 
misled  on  this  point  by  the  language  of  the  clause  which  relates 


352          PHASES   OF  THE   SILVER    QUESTION. 

to  the  storage  of  coin.  The  wording  of  this  section  is,  "  to  ena 
ble  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  provide  suitable  accommo 
dation  for  the  storage  of  coin,  —  $100,000."  Now,  of  course, 
"  storage "  means  building  room,  and  storage  of  coin  means 
vaults.  It  would  have  been  better,  therefore,  and  less  liable  to 
ambiguity,  if  the  language  had  been  simply  "  to  build  a  vault." 
That  is  all  it  means.  By  no  stretch  of  construction  can  this  be 
considered  as  authorizing  the  erection  of  a  new  building,  be 
cause,  if  a  new  building  is  to  be  put  up,  it  requires  the  selection 
of  a  site,  the  acquirement  of  a  title  to  the  lands,  and  all  that; 
but  this  simply  provides  an  accommodation  suitable  for  the 
storage  of  coin.  It  is  all  in  connection  with  the  Treasury 
buildings  here.  It  is  simply  to  provide  accommodation.  The 
recommendation  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  upon  which 
this  provision  was  inserted  in  the  appropriation  bill,  was  simply 
to  provide  more  vault  room ;  and  I  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that,  under  the  decision  of  the  chairman  of  the  committee  on  a 
point  of  order  raised  yesterday,  it  is  an  appropriation  for  con 
tinuing  work  already  in  progress  and  authorized  by  law.  All 
these  buildings,  and  all  ordinary  repairs  made  upon  them,  are 
works  of  progress,  and  the  Secretary  is  simply  authorized  to 
put  up  fixtures  in  a  building  already  authorized  by  law;  and 
under  the  same  decision  of  the  chairman  held  yesterday  this  is 
manifestly  in  order. 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY  AND  THE 
GOVERNMENT. 

SPEECH   DELIVERED   IN   THE   HOUSE  OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 
AUGUST  4,  1876. 


ON  the  2d  of  August,  1876,  Mr.  L.  Q.  C.  Lamar  made  a  speech  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  on  general  politics,  his  evident  purpose  being 
to  influence  public  opinion,  especially  at  the  North,  in  the  Presidential 
election  that  would  ensue  in  the  following  November.  On  the  4th,  the 
House  being  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the  bill  to  transfer  the 
conduct  of  Indian  Affairs  from  the  Interior  Department  to  the  War  De 
partment,  Mr.  Garfield  replied  in  the  following  speech. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,  — I  regret  that  the  speech  of  the  gen 
tleman  from  Mississippi  has  not  yet  appeared  in  the 
Record,  so  that  I  might  have  had  its  full  and  authentic  text 
before  offering  my  own  remarks  in  reply.  But  his  propositions 
were  so  clearly  and  so  very  ably  stated,  the  doctrines  that  run 
through  it  were  so  logically  connected,  that  it  will  be  my  own 
fault  if  I  fail  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  general  scope  and 
purpose  of  his  speech. 

In  the  outset,  I  desire  for  myself,  and  for  a  majority  at  least 
of  those  for  whom  I  speak,  to  express  my  gratitude  to  the  gen 
tleman  for  all  that  portion  of  his  speech  which  had  for  its  object 
the  removal  of  the  prejudices  and  unkindly  feelings  that  have 
arisen  among  citizens  of  the  republic  in  consequence  of  the  late 
war.  Whatever  faults  the  speech  may  have,  its  author  ex 
presses  an  earnest  desire  to  make  progress  in  the  direction  of  a 
better  understanding  between  the  North  and  the  South ;  and  in 
that  it  meets  my  most  hearty  concurrence  and  approval. 

VOL.    II.  23 


354  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

I  will  attempt  to  state  briefly  what  I  understand  to  be  the 
logic  of  the  gentleman's  speech.  He  sets  out  with  deploring 
the  evils  of  party,  and  expressing  the  belief  that  the  great  mass 
of  the  American  people  are  tired  of  much  that  belongs  to  party, 
and  that,  looking  beyond  and  above  mere  party  prejudices  and 
passions,  they  greatly  desire  to  remove  public  corruptions,  and 
reform  the  manifold  errors  and  evils  of  administration  and  legis 
lation.  He  holds  that  those  errors  and  evils  consist  mainly  of 
two  things :  first,  of  a  generally  corrupt  state  of  public  admin 
istration  ;  and,  secondly,  of  a  deplorable  state  of  the  civil  service ; 
that  this  state  of  affairs  is  buttressed  and  maintained  by  an  enor 
mous  army  of  a  hundred  thousand  civil  office-holders  and  a  hun 
dred  thousand  more  expectants  of  office ;  and  that  because  of 
this  vast  force  the  people  have  hitherto  been  unable  to  make  the 
reforms  they  desire.  This  is  his  major  premise.  The  next  point, 
his  minor  premise,  is  that  the  Republican  party  is  incapable  of 
effecting  the  great  reforms  which  the  people  desire.  And  hence 
his  conclusion  from  these  premises  is  that  the  Democratic  party 
ought  to  be  brought  into  power  in  the  coming  election.  This  is 
the  summary,  and,  I  may  say,  abrupt  conclusion  of  his  reasoning. 

The  gentleman  seemed  to  be  aware  that  there  might  be  some 
apprehensions  in  the  minds  of  the  people  that  it  would  not  quite 
yet  be  safe  to  recall  the  Democratic  party  to  power ;  and  he 
endeavored  to  quiet  those  apprehensions  by  stating,  in  the  first 
place,  that  there  need  be  no  fear  that  the  South  lately  in  rebel 
lion  would  again  control  the  government ;  that  they  were  pros 
trated  ;  that  their  institutions  had  been  overthrown ;  that  their 
industries  had  been  broken  up ;  that  in  their  weak  and  broken 
condition  there  need  be  no  fear  that  they  would  again  be  placed 
at  the  head  of  public  affairs;  and,  finally,  that  the  South  has 
united  with  the  Democratic  party,  not  from  choice,  but  because 
forced  to  do  so  by  inexorable  necessity  as  their  only  means  of 
protection. 

In  the  second  place,  there  is  apprehension,  he  said,  that  the 
Democracy,  if  they  came  into  power,  would  not  preserve  the 
beneficent  results  of  the  war.  But  he  assures  us  that  this  fear 
is  groundless ;  that  the  people  of  the  South  have  no  aspirations 
which  are  not  bounded  by  the  horizon  of  the  Union ;  that  they 
as  well  as  the  Democracy  of  the  North  accept,  honestly  and 
sincerely,  the  great  results  of  the  war;  and  that  they  can  be 
trusted  to  preserve  all  the  good  that  has  been  gained. 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT.  355 

Again,  he  says  it  is  feared,  on  the  part  of  many,  that  the  col 
ored  race,  lately  enslaved,  will  not  be  safe  in  the  full  enjoyment 
of  all  the  rights  resulting  from  the  war  and  guaranteed  by  the 
amendments  to  the  Constitution.  This  he  also  assures  us  is  a 
groundless  fear,  because  the  people  of  the  South  understand  the 
colored  race,  appreciate  their  qualities,  and  are  on  such  a  foot 
ing  of  friendship  and  regard  that  they  are  in  fact  better  fitted  to 
meet  the  wants  of  that  people;  and  help  them  along  in  the  way 
of  civilization,  enlightenment,  and  peace,  than  those  who  are 
further  removed  from  such  knowledge. 

He  emphasizes  the  statement  that  the  South  cheerfully  ac 
cepts  the  results  of  the  war ;  and  admits  that  much  good  has 
been  achieved  by  the  Republican  party  which  ought  to  be  pre 
served.  I  was  gratified  to  hear  the  gentleman  speak  of  Lincoln 
as  "  the  illustrious  author  of  the  great  act  of  emancipation." 
That  admission  will  be  welcomed  everywhere  by  those  who  be 
lieve  in  the  justice  and  wisdom  of  that  great  act.  While  speak 
ing  of  the  condition  of  the  South  and  its  wants,  he  deplored  two 
evils  which  afilict  that  portion  of  our  country :  first,  Federal 
supervision;  and,  secondly,  negro  ascendency  in  its  political 
affairs.  In  that  connection,  it  will  be  remembered,  he  quoted 
from  John  Stuart  Mill  and  from  Gibbon;  from  the  one  to  show 
that  the  most  deplorable  form  of  government  is  where  the  slave 
governs,  and  from  the  other  to  show  the  evils  of  a  government 
which  is  in  alien  hands.  The  gentleman  represented  the  South 
as  suffering  the  composite  evils  depicted  by  both  these  great 
writers.  That  I  may  be  sure  to  do  him  justice,  I  quote  a  para 
graph  from  the  Associated  Press  report  of  his  speech. 

"  The  inevitable  effect  of  that  reconstruction  policy  had  been  to  draw 
one  race  to  its  support,  and  drive  the  other  race  to  its  opposition.  He 
quoted  Gibbon,  the  historian,  as  saying  that  the  most  absurd  and  oppress 
ive  system  of  government  which  could  be  conceived  of  is  that  which 
subjects  the  natives  of  a  country  to  the  domination  of  its  slaves.  He  also 
quoted  from  John  Stuart  Mill,  to  the  effect  that,  when  a  government  is 
administered  by  rulers,  not  responsible  to  the  people  governed,  but  to 
some  other  community  or  power,  it  is  one  of  the  worst  of  conceivable  gov 
ernments,  and  he  said  that  the  hideous  system  established  in  the  South  is 
a  composite  of  those  two  vicious  systems.  The  people  are  subjected  to 
the  domination  of  their  former  slaves,  and  are  ruled  over  by  people 
whose  constituents  were  not  the  people  for  whom  they  should  act,  but 
the  Federal  government."  1 

1  See  Congressional  Globe,  August  2,  1876,  p.  5091. 


356  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

Now,  I  have  stated  —  of  course  very  briefly,  but  I  hope  with 
entire  fairness — the  scope  of  the  very  able  speech  to  which  we 
listened.  In  a  word  it  is  this :  the  Republican  party  is  oppress 
ing  the  South ;  negro  suffrage  is  a  grievous  evil ;  there  are 
serious  corruptions  in  public  affairs  in  the  national  legislation 
and  administration ;  the  civil  service  of  the  country  especially 
needs  great  and  radical  reform ;  and  therefore  the  Democratic 
party  ought  to  be  placed  in  control  of  the  government  at  this 
time,  by  the  election  of  Tilden  and  Hendricks. 

It  has  not  been  my  habit,  and  it  is  not  my  desire,  to  discuss 
mere  party  politics  in  this  great  legislative  forum.  And  I  shall 
do  so  now  only  in  so  far  as  a  fair  review  of  the  gentleman's 
speech  requires.  My  remarks  shall  be  responsive  to  his ;  and  I 
shall  discuss  party  history  and  party  policy  only  as  the  logic  of 
his  speech  leads  into  that  domain. 

From  most  of  the  premises  of  the  gentleman,  as  matters  of 
fact  and  history,  I  dissent ;  some  of  them  are  undoubtedly  cor 
rect  ;  but,  for  the  sake  of  argument  only,  admitting  that  all  his 
premises  are  correct,  I  deny  that  his  conclusion  is  warranted  by 
his  premises ;  and  before  I  close  I  shall  attempt  to  show  that 
the  good  he  seeks  cannot  at  this  time  be  secured  by  the  as 
cendency  of  the  Democratic  party. 

Before  entering  upon  that  field,  however,  I  must  notice  this 
remarkable  omission  in  the  logic  of  his  speech.  Although  he 
did  state  that  the  country  might  consider  itself  free  from  some 
of  the  dangers  which  are  apprehended  as  the  result  of  Demo 
cratic  ascendency,  he  did  not,  as  I  remember,  by  any  word  at 
tempt  to  prove  the  fitness  of  the  Democracy  as  a  political  or 
ganization  to  accomplish  the  reforms  which  he  so  much  desires ; 
and  without  that  affirmative  proof  of  fitness  his  argument  is 
necessarily  an  absolute  failure.  It  is  precisely  that  fear  which 
has  not  only  made  the  ascendency  of  the  Democratic  party  so 
long  impossible,  but  has  made  it  incompetent  to  render  that 
service  so  necessary  to  good  government,  —  the  service  of  main 
taining  the  position  of  a  wise  and  honorable  opposition  to  the 
dominant  party.  Often  the  blunders  and  faults  of  the  Republi 
can  party  have  been  condoned  by  the  people  because  of  the 
violent,  reactionary,  and  disloyal  spirit  of  the  Democracy. 

He  tells  us  that  it  is  one  of  the  well-known  lessons  of  politi 
cal  history  and  philosophy,  that  the  opposition  party  often  comes 
in  to  crystallize  and  preserve  the  measures  which  their  antago- 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT. 


357 


nists  inaugurated;  and  that  a  conservative  opposition  party  is 
better  fitted  to  accomplish  such  a  work  than  an  aggressive 
radical  party,  who  roughly  pioneered  the  way  and  brought  in 
the  changes.  And  to  apply  this  maxim  to  our  own  situation, 
he  tells  us  that  the  differences  between  the  Republican  and  the 
Democratic  parties,  upon  the  issues  which  led  to  the  war  and 
those  which  grew  out  of  it,  were  rather  differences  of  time  than  of 
substance ;  that  the  Democracy  followed  more  slowly  in  the  Re 
publican  path,  but  have  at  last  arrived,  by  prudent  and  constitu 
tional  methods,  at  the  same  results ;  and  hence  they  will  be  sure 
to  guard  securely  and  cherish  faithfully  what  the  Republicans 
gained  by  reckless  and  turbulent  methods.  There  is  some  truth 
in  these  "  glittering  generalities,"  but,  as  applied  to  our  present 
situation,  they  are  entitled  only  to  the  consideration  which  we 
give  to  the  bright  but  fantastic  pictures  of  a  Utopian  dream. 

I  share  all  the  gentleman's  aspirations  for  peace,  for  good 
government  at  the  South ;  and  I  believe  I  can  safely  assure  him 
that  the  great  majority  of  the  nation  share  the  same  aspira 
tions.  But  he  will  allow  me  to  say  that  he  has  not  fully  stated 
the  elements  of  the  great  problem  to  be  solved  by  the  states 
manship  of  to-day.  The  actual  field  is  much  broader  than  the 
view  he  has  taken.  And  before  we  can  agree  that  the  remedy 
he  proposes  is  an  adequate  one,  we  must  take  in  the  whole 
field,  comprehend  all  the  conditions  of  the  problem,  and  then 
see  if  his  remedy  is  sufficient.  The  change  he  proposes  is  not 
like  the  ordinary  change  of  a  ministry  in  England,  when  the 
government  is  defeated  on  a  tax  bill,  or  some  routine  measure 
of  legislation.  He  proposes  to  turn  over  the  custody  and  man 
agement  of  the  government  to  a  party  which  has  persistently 
and  with  the  greatest  bitterness  resisted  all  the  great  changes  of 
the  last  fifteen  years, — changes  which  were  the  necessary  re 
sults  of  a  vast  revolution,  —  a  revolution  in  national  policy,  in 
social  and  political  ideas,  —  a  revolution  whose  causes  were  not 
the  work  of  a  day  nor  a  year,  but  of  generations  and  centuries. 
The  scope  and  character  of  that  mighty  revolution  must  form 
the  basis  of  our  judgment  when  we  inquire  whether  such  a 
change  as  he  proposes  is  safe  and  wise. 

In  discussing  his  proposition  we  must  not  forget  that,  as  the 
result  of  this  revolution,  the  South,  after  the  great  devastations 
of  war,  the  great  loss  of  life  and  treasure,  the  overthrow  of  its 
social  and  industrial  system,  was  called  upon  to  confront  the 


358  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

new  and  difficult  problem  of  two  races,  one  just  relieved  from 
centuries  of  slavery,  and  the  other  a  cultivated,  brave,  proud, 
imperious  race,  —  the  two  now  to  be  brought  together  on  terms 
of  equality  before  the  law.  Every  point  of  that  problem  bristles 
with  new,  difficult,  delicate,  and  dangerous  questions.  But  that 
is  not  all  of  the  situation.  On  the  other  hand,  we  see  the 
North  —  after  leaving  its  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dead 
upon  the  field  of  battle,  and  bringing  home  its  five  hundred 
thousand  maimed  and  wounded  to  be  cared  for  —  crippled  in  its 
industries  and  staggering  under  the  tremendous  burden  of  pub 
lic  and  private  debt.  Both  North  and  South  are  weighted  with 
unparalleled  burdens  and  losses,  —  the  whole  nation  suffering 
from  that  loosening  of  the  bonds  of  social  order  which  always 
follows  a  great  war,  and  from  the  resulting  corruption  both  in 
the  public  and  the  private  life  of  the  people.  These,  Mr. 
Chairman,  constitute  the  vast  field  which  we  must  survey  in 
order  to  find  the  path  which  will  soonest  lead  our  beloved 
country  to  the  highway  of  peace,  of  liberty,  and  of  prosperity. 
Peace  from  the  shock  of  battle  ;  the  higher  peace  of  our  streets, 
of  our  homes,  of  our  equal  rights,  we  must  make  secure  by 
making  the  conquering  ideas  of  the  war  everywhere  dominant 
and  permanent. 

With  all  my  heart  I  join  with  the  gentleman  in  rejoicing  that 

"The  war-drum  throbs  no  longer,  and  the  battle-flags  are  furled," 

and  I  look  forward  with  joy  and  hope  to  the  day  when  our 
brave  people,  one  in  heart,  one  in  their  aspirations  for  freedom 
and  peace,  shall  see  that  the  darkness  through  which  we  have 
travelled  was  a  part  of  that  stern  but  beneficent  discipline  by 
which  the  Great  Disposer  of  events  has  been  leading  us  on 
to  a  higher  and  nobler  national  life.  But  such  a  result  can  be 
reached  only  by  comprehending  the  whole  meaning  of  the  revo 
lution  through  which  we  have  passed  and  are  still  passing.  I 
say  still  passing ;  for  I  remember  that  after  the  battle  of  arms 
comes  the  battle  of  history.  The  cause  that  triumphs  in  the 
field  does  not  always  triumph  in  history.  And  those  who 
carried  the  war  for  union  and  equal  and  universal  freedom  to 
a  victorious  issue  can  never  safely  relax  their  vigilance  until 
the  ideas  for  which  they  fought  have  become  embodied  in  the 
enduring  forms  of  individual  and  national  life.  Has  this  been 
done?  Not  yet. 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT.  359 

I  ask  the  gentleman  in  all  plainness  of  speech,  and  yet  in  all 
kindness,  Is  he  correct  in  his  statement  that  the  conquered  party 
accept  the  results  of  the  war?  Even  if  they  do,  I  remind  the 
gentleman  that  accept  is  not  a  very  strong  word.  I  go  further. 
I  ask  him  if  the  Democratic  party  have  adopted  the  results  of  the 
war?  Is  it  not  asking  too  much  of  human  nature  to  expect  such 
unparalleled  changes  to  be  not  only  accepted,  but,  in  so  short  a 
time,  adopted  by  men  of  strong  and  independent  opinions? 

The  antagonisms  which  gave  rise  to  the  war  and  grew  out  of 
it  were  not  born  in  a  day,  nor  can  they  vanish  in  a  night.  Mr. 
Chairman,  great  ideas  travel  slowly,  and  for  a  time  noiselessly 
as  the  gods,  whose  feet  were  shod  with  wool.  Our  war  of  in 
dependence  was  a  war  of  ideas,  of  ideas  evolved  out  of  two 
hundred  years  of  slow  and  silent  growth.  When,  one  hundred 
years  ago,  our  fathers  announced  as  self-evident  truths,  that  all 
men  are  created  equal,  and  that  the  only  just  powers  of  govern 
ments  are  derived  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  they  uttered 
a  doctrine  that  no  nation  had  ever  adopted,  that  not  one  king 
dom  on  the  earth  then  believed.  Yet  to  our  fathers  it  was  so 
plain,  that  they  would  not  debate  it.  They  announced  it  as  a 
truth  "  self-evident." 

Whence  came  the  immortal  truths  of  the  Declaration?  To  me 
this  was  for  years  the  riddle  of  our  history.  I  had  searched 
long  and  patiently  through  the  books  of  the  doctrinaires  to  find 
the  germs  from  which  the  Declaration  of  Independence  sprang. 
I  found  hints  in  Locke,  in  Hobbes,  in  Rousseau,  and  in  Fene- 
lon  ;  but  they  were  only  the  hints  of  dreamers  and  philosophers. 
The  great  doctrines  of  the  Declaration  germinated  in  the  hearts 
of  our  fathers,  and  were  developed  under  the  new  influences  of 
this  wilderness  world,  by  the  same  subtle  mystery  which  brings 
forth  the  rose  from  the  germ  of  the  rose-tree.  Unconsciously 
to  themselves,  the  great  truths  were  growing  under  the  new 
conditions  until,  like  the  century-plant,  they  blossomed  into  the 
matchless  beauty  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  whose 
fruitage,  increased  and  increasing,  we  enjoy  to-clay. 

It  will  not  do,  Mr.  Chairman,  to  speak  of  the  gigantic  revo 
lution  through  which  we  have  lately  passed  as  a  thing  to  be 
adjusted  and  settled  by  a  change  of  administration.  It  was 
cyclical,  epochal,  century-wide,  and  to  be  studied  in  its  broad 
and  grand  perspective,  —  a  revolution  of  even  wider  scope,  so 
far  as  time  is  concerned,  than  the  Revolution  of  1776.  We 


360  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

have  been  dealing  with  elements  and  forces  which  have  been 
at  work  on  this  continent  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years.  I  trust  I  shall  be  excused  if  I  take  a  few  moments  to 
trace  some  of  the  leading  phases  of  the  great  struggle.  And  in 
doing  so,  I  beg  gentlemen  to  see  that  the  subject  itself  lifts  us 
into  a  region  where  the  individual  sinks  out  of  sight  and  is 
absorbed  in  the  mighty  current  of  great  events.  It  is  not  the 
occasion  to  award  praise  or  pronounce  condemnation.  In  such 
a  revolution  men  are  like  insects,  that  fret  and  toss  in  the 
storm,  but  are  swept  onward  by  the  resistless  movements  of 
elements  beyond  their  control.  I  speak  of  this  revolution  not 
to  praise  the  men  who  aided  it,  or  to  censure  the  men  who 
resisted  "it,  but  as  a  force  to  be  studied,  as  a  mandate  to  be 
obeyed. 

In  the  year  1620  there  were  planted  upon  this  continent  two 
ideas  irreconcilably  hostile  to  each  other.  Ideas  are  the  great 
warriors  of  the  world ;  and  a  war  that  has  no  ideas  behind  it  is 
simply  brutality.  The  two  ideas  were  landed,  one  at  Plymouth 
Rock  from  the  Mayflower,  and  the  other  from  a  Dutch  brig  at 
Jamestown.  One  was  the  old  doctrine  of  Luther,  that  private 
judgment,  in  politics  as  well  as  religion,  is  the  right  and  duty 
of  every  man ;  and  the  other,  that  capital  should  own  labor,  that 
the  negro  has  no  rights  of  manhood,  and  the  white  man  may 
justly  buy,  own,  and  sell  him  and  his  offspring  forever.  Thus 
freedom  and  equality  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  the 
slavery  of  one  race  and  the  domination  of  another,  were  planted 
on  this  continent.  In  our  vast  expanse  of  wilderness,  for  a  long 
time,  there  was  room  for  both ;  and  their  advocates  began  the 
race  across  the  continent,  each  developing  the  social  and  politi 
cal  institutions  of  their  choice.  Both  had  vast  interests  in  com 
mon  ;  and  for  a  long  time  neither  was  conscious  of  the  fatal 
antagonisms  that  were  developing. 

For  nearly  two  centuries  there  was  no  serious  collision ;  but 
when  the  continent  began  to  fill  up,  and  the  people  began  to 
jostle  against  each  other,  when  the  Roundhead  and  the  Cava 
lier  came  near  enough  to  measure  opinions,  the  irreconcilable 
character  of  the  two  doctrines  began  to  appear.  Many  con 
scientious  men  studied  the  subject,  and  came  to  the  belief  that 
slavery  was  a  crime,  a  sin,  or,  as  Wesley  said,  "  the  sum  of  all 
villanies."  This  belief  dwelt  in  small  minorities  for  a  long 
time.  It  lived  in  churches  and  vestries,  but  later  found  its  way 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT.  361 

into  the  civil  and  political  organizations  of  the  country,  and 
finally  found  its  way  into  this  chamber.  A  few  brave,  clear 
sighted,  far-seeing  men  announced  it  here,  a  little  more  than  a 
generation  ago.  A  predecessor  of  mine,  Joshua  R.  Giddings, 
following  the  lead  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  almost  alone,  held 
up  the  banner  on  this  floor,  and  from  year  to  year  comrades 
came  to  his  side.  Through  evil  and  through  good  report  he 
pressed  the  question  upon  the  conscience  of  the  nation,  and 
bravely  stood  in  his  place  in  this  House  in  the  thick  of  the 
fight. 

And  so  the  contest  continued ;  the  supporters  of  slavery  be 
lieving  honestly  and  sincerely  that  slavery  was  a  divine  insti 
tution,  that  it  found  its  high  sanctions  in  the  living  oracles  of 
God  and  in  a  wise  political  philosophy,  that  it  was  justified  by 
the  necessities  of  their  situation,  and  that  slaveholders  were 
missionaries  to  the  dark  sons  of  Africa,  to  elevate  and  bless 
them.  We  are  so  far  past  the  passions  of  that  early  time  that, 
without  sharing  in  the  crimination  and  recrimination  that  at 
tended  it,  we  can  now  study  the  progress  of  the  struggle  as  a 
great  and  inevitable  development.  If  both  sides  could  have 
seen  that  it  was  a  contest  beyond  their  control,  —  if  both  parties 
could  have  realized  the  truth,  that  "  unsettled  questions  have  no 
pity  for  the  repose  of  nations,"  much  less  for  the  fate  of  politi 
cal  parties, — the  bitterness,  the  sorrow,  the  tears,  and  the  blood 
might  have  been  avoided.  But  we  walked  in  the  darkness,  our 
paths  obscured  by  the  smoke  of  the  conflict,  each  following  his 
own  convictions  through  ever-increasing  fierceness,  until  the  de 
bate  culminated  in  u  the  last  argument  to  which  kings  resort." 

This  conflict  was  not  one  of  sentimental  feeling  merely ;  it  in 
volved  our  whole  political  system ;  it  gave  rise  to  two  radically 
different  theories  of  the  nature  of  our  government,  the  North 
believing  and  holding  that  we  were  a  nation,  the  South  insist 
ing  that  we  were  only  a  confederation  of  sovereign  States,  and 
insisting  that  each  State  had  the  right,  at  its  own  discretion,  to 
break  the  Union,  and  constantly  threatening  secession  when  the 
full  rights  of  slavery  were  not  acknowledged. 

Thus  the  defence  and  aggrandizement  of  slavery  and  the 
hatred  of  abolitionism  became,  not  only  the  central  idea  of  the 
Democratic  party,  but  its  master  passion,  —  a  passion  intensi 
fied  and  inflamed  by  twenty-five  years  of  fierce  political  con 
test,  which  had  not  only  driven  from  its  ranks  all  those  who 


362  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

preferred  freedom  to  slavery,  but  had  absorbed  all  the  extreme 
proslavery  elements  of  the  fallen  Whig  party.  Against  this  party 
was  arrayed  the  Republican  party,  asserting  the  broad  doctrines 
of  nationality  and  loyalty,  insisting  that  no  State  had  a  right  to 
secede,  that  secession  was  treason,  and  demanding  that  the  insti 
tution  of  slavery  should  be  restricted  to  the  limits  of  the  States 
where  it  already  existed.  But  here  and  there,  many  bolder  and 
more  radical  thinkers  declared,  with  Wendell  Phillips,  that  there 
never  could  be  union  and  peace,  freedom  and  prosperity,  until 
we  were  willing  to  see  John  Hancock  under  a  black  skin. 

That  we  may  see  more  clearly  the  opinions  which  were  to  be 
settled  by  war,  I  will  read  two  passages  from  the  Congressional 
Globe,  not  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  personal  point  against 
any  man,  but  simply  to  show  where  honest  men  stood  when 
that  contest  was  approaching  its  crisis.  I  read  from  a  speech 
made  on  the  iQth  of  December,  1859,  by  a  distinguished  gentle 
man  from  Mississippi,1  then  and  now  a  member  of  this  House. 

"  The  South  will  never  submit  to  that  state  of  things.  It  matters  not 
what  evils  come  upon  us  ;  it  matters  not  how  deep  we  may  have  to  wade 
through  blood ;  we  are  bound  to  keep  our  slaves  in  their  present  position. 
And  let  me  ask  you,  What  good  would  you  bring  to  the  slaves  by  this  pro 
cess  of  abolition?  You  may  possibly  have  the  object  in  view  of  bene 
fiting  the  slaves,  or  benefiting  the  white  race,  or  both  ;  but  suppose  you 
could  carry  out  your  plans,  and  confine  us  to  our  present  area,  and  sup 
pose  that  the  institution  of  slavery  should  abolish  itself,  what  would  you 
have  done  ?  You  know  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  live  on  terms  of  equal 
ity  with  them.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  for  a  moment  that  we  can  do 
so.  The  result  would  be  a  war  between  the  races,  which  would  per 
haps  involve  the  utter  annihilation  of  one  or  the  other ;  and  thus  you  see 
that,  instead  of  benefiting  either,  you  would  have  brought  disaster  upon 
both. 

"  But  I  tell  you  here,  to-day,  that  the  institution  of  slavery  must  be 
sustained.  The  South  has  made  up  its  mind  to  keep  the  black  race  in 
bondage.  If  we  are  not  permitted  to  do  this  inside  of  the  Union,  I  tell 
you  that  it  will  be  done  outside  of  it.  Yes,  sir ;  and  we  will  expand  this 
institution ;  we  do  not  intend  to  be  confined  within  our  present  limits ; 
and  there  are  not  men  enough  in  all  your  borders  to  coerce  three  million 
armed  men  in  the  South,  and  prevent  their  going  into  the  surrounding 
territories."  2 

In  the  course  of  that  debate,  the  same  gentleman  said :  "  I 
am  one  of  those  who  have  said,  and  here  repeat  it,  if  the  Black 

1  Mr.  Singleton.  2  Congressional  Globe,  ist  Sess.  36th  Cong.,  App.,  p.  51. 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT.  363 

Republican   party  elect   a  President,   I   am   for   dissolving  the 
Union." 

I  have  no  doubt  the  gentleman  fairly  and  faithfully  repre 
sented  the  opinions  of  his  State.  Not  long  before  the  date  of 
this  speech,  it  will  be  remembered  that  two  distinguished  mem 
bers  of  the  Republican  party  had  uttered  their  opinions  on  this 
question.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  said  that  it  was  impossible  for  a 
country  to  remain  partly  slave  and  partly  free;  and  Mr.  Seward 
had  declared  that  there  was  an  irrepressible  conflict  between 
the  systems  of  free  and  slave  labor,  which  could  never  cease 
until  one  or  the  other  was  wholly  overthrown.  The  Republi 
can  party,  however,  disclaimed  all  right  or  purpose  to  interfere 
with  slavery  in  the  States ;  yet  they  expressed  the  hope  that 
the  time  would  come  when  there  should  be  no  slave  under  our 
flag.  In  response  to  that  particular  opinion,  the  distinguished 
gentleman  from  Mississippi,1  then  a  member  of  this  House,  on 
the  23d  of  December,  1859,  said  this:  — 

"  I  was  upon  the  floor  of  the  Senate  when  your  great  leader,  William 
H.  Seward,  announced  that  startling  programme  of  antislavery  senti 
ment  and  action And,  sir,  in  his  exultation,  he  exclaimed  —  for 

I  heard  him  myself — that  he  hoped  to  see  the  day  when  there  would 
not  be  the  footprint  of  a  single  slave  upon  this  continent.  And  when  he 
uttered  this  atrocious  sentiment,  his  form  seemed  to  dilate,  his  pale,  thin 
face,  furrowed  by  the  lines  of  thought  and  evil  passions,  kindled  with 
malignant  triumph,  and  his  eye  glowed  and  glared  upon  Southern  Sena 
tors  as  though  the  fires  of  hell  were  burning  in  his  heart."  '2 

I  have  read  this  passage  to  mark  the  height  to  which  the 
antagonism  had  risen  in  1859.  And  this  passage  enables  us  to 
measure  the  progress  which  the  gentleman  has  since  made.  I 
mark  it  here,  as  one  of  the  notable  signs  of  the  time,  that  the 
gulf  between  the  position  then  occupied  by  the  gentleman  from 
Mississippi  and  the  position  he  occupies  to-day  is  so  deep,  so 
vast,  that  it  indicates  a  progress  worthy  of  all  praise.  I  con 
gratulate  him  and  the  country  that,  in  so  short  a  time,  so  great 
a  change  has  been  possible. 

Now,  I  ask  the  gentleman  if  he  is  quite  sure,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  that  the  Democratic  party,  its  Southern  as  well  as  its 
Northern  wing,  have  followed  his  own  illustrious  and  worthy 
example  in  the  vast  progress  that  he  has  made  since  1859?  He 
assures  us  that  the  transformation  has  been  so  complete,  that 

1  Mr.  Lamar.  -  Congressional  Globe,  Dec.  23,  1859,  pp.  228,  229. 


364  THE   DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

the  nation  can  safely  trust  all  the  most  precious  fruits  of  the 
war  in  the  hands  of  that  party  who  stood  with  him  in  1859?  If 
that  be  true,  I  rejoice  at  it  with  all  my  heart;  but  the  gentle 
man  must  pardon  me  if  I  ask  him  to  brace  my  wavering  faith 
by  some  evidence,  some  consoling  proofs.  When  did  the  great 
transformation  take  place?  Certainly  not  within  two  years  after 
the  delivery  of  the  speech  I  have  quoted ;  for  two  years  from 
that  time  the  contest  had  risen  much  higher,  —  it  had  risen  to 
the  point  of  open,  terrible,  and  determined  war.  Did  the  change 
come  during  the  war?  O,  no;  for  in  the  four  terrible  years 
ending  in  1865,  every  resource  of  courage  and  power  that  the 
Southern  States  could  muster  was  employed,  not  only  to  save 
slavery,  but  to  destroy  the  Union.  So  the  transformation  had 
not  occurred  in  1865.  When  did  it  occur?  Aid  our  anxious 
inquiry,  for  the  nation  ought  to  be  sure  that  the  great  change 
has  occurred  before  it  can  safely  trust  its  destinies  to  the  Demo 
cratic  party.  Did  it  occur  in  the  first  epoch  of  reconstruction, 
—  the  two  years  immediately  following  the  war.  During  that 
period  the  attempt  was  made  to  restore  the  State  governments 
in  the  South  on  the  basis  of  the  white  vote.  Military  control 
was  held  generally ;  but  the  white  population  of  the  Southern 
States  were  invited  to  elect  their  own  legislatures,  and  establish 
provisional  governments.  In  the  laws,  covering  a  period  of  two 
and  a  half  years, — 1865,  1866,  and  a  portion  of  1867,  —  enacted 
by  those  legislatures,  we  ought  to  find  proof  of  the  transforma 
tion  if  it  had  then  occurred.  What  do  we  find?  What  we 
should  naturally  expect,  —  that  a  people,  accustomed  to  the 
domination  of  slavery,  re-enacted  in  almost  all  of  the  Southern 
States,  and  notably  in  the  States  of  Mississippi  and  Louisiana, 
laws  limiting  and  restricting  the  liberty  of  the  colored  man, — 
vagrant  laws  and  peonage  laws,  whereby  negroes  were  sold  at 
auction  for  the  payment  of  a  paltry  tax  or  fine,  and  held  in  a 
slavery  as  real  as  the  slavery  of  other  days.  I  believe  that  this 
is  true  of  nearly  all  the  Southern  States ;  so  that  the  experiment 
of  allowing  the  white  population  of  the  South  to  adjust  that  very 
question  proved  a  frightful  failure.  Then  it  was  that  the  national 
Congress  intervened ;  they  proposed  an  act  of  reconstruction, 
an  act  which  became  a  law  on  the  2d  of  March,  1867. 

And  what  was  that  act?  Gentlemen  of  the  South,  you  are 
too  deeply  schooled  in  philosophy  to  take  umbrage  at  what  I 
shall  now  say,  for  I  am  dealing  only  with  history.  You  must 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT.  365 

know,  and  certainly  do  know,  that  the  great  body  of  the  nation, 
which  had  carried  the  war  to  success  and  triumph,  knew  that 
the  eleven  States  which  had  opposed  the  Union  had  plunged 
their  people  into  crime ;  —  a  crime  set  down  in  the  law —  a  law 
signed  by  President  Washington  —  at  the  very  top  of  the  cata 
logue  of  crimes,  —  the  crime  of  treason,  and  all  that  follows  it. 
You  certainly  know  that,  under  that  law,  every  man  who  volun 
tarily  took  up  arms  against  the  Union  could  have  been  tried, 
convicted,  and  hanged  as  a  traitor  to  his  country.  But  I  call 
your  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  conquering  nation  said,  in 
this  great  work  of  reconstruction,  "  We  will  do  nothing  for  re 
venge,  everything  for  permanent  peace  " ;  and  you  know  there 
never  was  a  trial  for  treason  in  this  country  during  the  whole  of 
the  struggle,  nor  after  it.  No  man  was  executed  for  treason ; 
no  man  was  tried.  There  was  no  expatriation,  no  exile,  no  con 
fiscation  after  the  war.  The  only  revenge  which  the  conquering 
nation  gratified  was  in  saying  to  the  South,  "  You  may  come 
back  to  your  full  place  in  the  Union  when  you  do  these  things : 
join  with  the  other  States  in  putting  into  the  Constitution  a  pro 
vision  that  the  national  debt  shall  never  be  repudiated;  that 
your  Rebel  war  debt  shall  never  be  paid  ;  and  that  all  men,  with 
out  regard  to  race  or  color,  shall  stand  equal  before  the  law,  not 
in  suffrage,  but  in  civil  rights ;  that  these  great  guaranties  of 
liberty  and  public  faith  shall  be  lifted  above  the  reach  of  politi 
cal  parties,  above  the  legislation  of  States,  above  the  legislation 
of  Congress,  and  shall  be  set  in  the  serene  firmament  of  the 
Constitution,  to  shine  as  lights  forever  and  forever.  And  under 
that  equal  sky,  under  the  light  of  that  equal  sun,  all  men,  of 
whatever  race  or  color,  shall  stand  equal  before  the  law." 

That  was  the  plan  of  reconstruction  offered  to  those  who  had 
been  in  rebellion,  —  offered  by  a  generous  and  brave  nation ; 
and  I  challenge  the  world  to  show  an  act  of  equal  generosity  to 
a  conquered  people.  What  answer  did  it  meet?  By  the  advice 
of  Andrew  Johnson,  a  bad  adviser,  backed  by  the  advice  of  the 
Northern  Democracy,  a  still  worse  adviser,  ten  of  the  eleven 
States  lately  in  rebellion  contemptuously  rejected  the  plan  of 
reconstruction  embraced  in  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  of  the 
Constitution.  They  would  have  none  of  it ;  they  had  been  in 
vited  by  their  Northern  allies  to  stand  out,  and  were  told  that, 
when  the  Democracy  came  into  power,  they  should  be  permitted 
to  come  back  to  their  places  without  guaranties  or  conditions. 


366  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

This  brings  us  to  1868.  Had  the  transformation  occurred 
then?  For  remember,  gentlemen,  I  am  searching  for  the  date 
of  the  great  Democratic  transformation,  similar  to  that  which 
has  taken  place  in  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi.  We  do  not 
find  it  in  1868.  On  the  contrary,  in  that  year  we  find  Frank 
P.  Blair,  of  Missouri,  writing  these  words,  which,  a  few  days 
after  they  were  written,  gave  him  the  nomination  for  the  Vice- 
Presidency  on  the  Democratic  ticket:  "There  is  but  one  way 
to  restore  the  government  and  the  Constitution ;  and  that  is  for 
the  President  elect  to  declare  all  these  acts" — the  Reconstruc 
tion  Acts  and  the  Constitutional  Amendments  with  them — to 
declare  all  these  acts  "null  and  void,  compel  the  army  to  undo  its 
usurpations  at  the  South,  disperse  the  carpet-bag  State  govern 
ments,  allow  the  white  people  to  reorganize  their  own  govern 
ments,  and  elect  Senators  and  Representatives."  1 

Because  he  wrote  that  letter  he  was  nominated  for  Vice- 
President  by  the  Democratic  party.  Therefore,  as  late  as  July, 
1868,  the  transformation  had  not  occurred. 

Had  it  occurred  in  1872?  In  1871  and  1872  the  three  amend 
ments  of  the  Constitution  had  been  adopted,  against  the  stub 
born  resistance  of  the  Northern  and  Southern  Democracy.  I 
call  you  to  witness  that,  with  the  exception  of  three  or  four 
Democratic  Representatives  who  voted  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  the  three  great  Amendments,  the  Thirteenth,  the  Four 
teenth,  and  the  Fifteenth,  met  the  determined  and  united  oppo 
sition  of  the  Democracy  of  this  country.  Each  of  the  amend 
ments  now  so  praised  by  the  gentleman  was  adopted  against 
the  whole  weight  of  your  resistance.  And  two  years  after  the 
adoption  of  the  last  amendment,  in  many  of  your  State  plat 
forms  they  were  declared  to  be  null  and  void. 

In  1871  and  1872  occurred  those  dreadful  scenes  enacted  by 
the  Ku-Klux  organization  throughout  the  South,  of  which  I 
will  say  only  this,  that  a  man  facile  princeps  among  the  Dem 
ocrats  of  the  old  slaveholding  States,  Reverdy  Johnson,  who 
was  sent  down  to  defend  those  who  were  indicted  for  their 
crimes,  held  up  his  hands  in  horror  at  the  shocking  barbarities 
that  had  been  perpetrated  by  his  clients  upon  negro  citizens. 
I  refer  to  the  evidence  of  that  eminent  man  as  a  sufficient  proof 
of  the  character  of  that  great  conspiracy  against  the  freedom 
of  the  colored  race.  So  the  transformation  had  not  come  in 
the  Ku-Klux  days  of  1871  and  1872. 

*  Letter  to  J.  O.  Brodhead,  dated  Washington,  D.  C,  June  30,  1868. 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT.  367 

Had  it  come  in  1873  and  the  beginning  of  1874?  Had  it 
come  in  the  State  of  Mississippi?  Had  it  come  in  one  quarter 
of  the  States  lately  in  rebellion?  Here  is  a  report  from  an 
honorable  committee  of  this  House,  signed  by  two  gentlemen 
who  are  still  members,  Mr.  Conger  and  Mr.  Hurlbut,  —  a  report 
made  as  late  as  December,  1874,  in  which  there  is  disclosed,  by 
innumerable  witnesses,  the  proof  thattthe  White  Line  organiza 
tion,  an  armed  military  organization  formed  within  the  Demo 
cratic  party,  had  leagued  themselves  together  to  prevent  the 
enjoyment  of  suffrage  and  equal  rights  by  the  colored  men  of 
the  South.  I  will  quote  two  or  three  paragraphs  from  that 
report,  dated  December  14,  1874. 

"  The  '  White  Line.'  —  This  interior  organization  has  not  yet  assumed 
definitely,  in  the  State  of  Mississippi,  such  precise  form  and  so  distinct 
an  existence  as  in  the  State  of  Louisiana,  but  is,  unquestionably,  an 
extension  into  Mississippi  of  the  '  White  League '  organization,  whose 
headquarters  are  in  New  Orleans.  In  Warren  County  it  is  sometimes 
called  the  '  White  Line,'  and  by  that  name  is  familiarly  spoken  of  by  the 
leading  papers  of  Vicksburg,  as  well  as  by  some  of  the  prominent  wit 
nesses  before  this  committee.  It  is  also  known  as  '  People's  Clubs  ' ;  but 
in  all  instances  the  formation  of  the  clubs,  or  civil  organization,  is  accom 
panied  by  establishing  within  the  clubs  themselves  a  military  organiza 
tion,  officered,  equipped,  and  armed. 

"  Thus  the  clubs  and  the  Taxpayers'  League  are  open  associations 
apparently  directed  toward  objects  in  which  all  citizens  might  lawfully 
unite,  but  controlled  from  within  by  the  military  and  partisan  organiza 
tions  whose  purposes  are  special  and  unlawful. 

"  The  purposes  of  these  clubs  or  White  Line  companies  are  these,  as 
they  are  openly  avowed  or  secretly  cherished  :  - — 

"  i.  They  are  first  to  make  a  census  and  enrolment  of  all  the  white 
men  in  the  State. 

"  2.  To  incorporate  into  the  interior  military  organizations  all  the 
whites  who  will  join  with  them. 

"3.  To  set  aside  by  whatever  means  may  be  necessary  the  election 
of  colored  men  to  office,  and  to  nullify  in  practice  the  enabling  and 
enforcement  acts  of  Congress,  granting  and  enforcing  the  right  of  all 
citizens,  without  distinction  of  color,  to  hold  offices,  if  properly  elected 
to  them. 

"  4.  To  allow  none  but  white  men  to  be  elected  to  office  or  to  hold 
office."  l 

And  how  was  it  about  the  same  time,  and  even  later,  in  other 
States?      Here    is  a  report  upon   Louisiana,   the    report    from 
1  House  Report  No.  265,  2d  Sess.  43d  Cong ,  p.  2. 


368  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

which  the  gentleman  quoted,  —  a  report  that  exhibits  the  same 
condition  of  affairs,  signed  by  the  gentleman  who  sits  in  front 
of  me.1  Although  made  by  a  minority  of  the  committee,  it  is 
a  report  of  great  power  and  of  indubitable  truth.  I  quote :  — 

"  The  White  League  is  an  organization  which  exists  in  New  Orleans, 
and  contains  at  least  from  twenty-five  hundred  to  three  thousand  mem 
bers,  armed,  drilled,  and  officered  as  a  military  organization.  Organiza 
tions  bearing  the  same  name  extend  throughout  many  parts  of  the  State. 
....  On  the  1 4th  of  September,  1874,  it  rose  upon  and  attacked  the 
police  of  the  city,  the  pretext  of  the  attack  being  the  seizure  of  arms 
which  it  had  imported  from  the  North,  and  having  defeated  them  with 
considerable  slaughter,  it  took  possession  of  the  State-house,  overthrew 
the  State  government,  and  installed  a  new  Governor  in  office,  and  kept 
him  in  power  until  the  United  States  interfered.  This  rising  was  planned 

beforehand The  White  League  of  New  Orleans  itself  was  and  is 

a  constant  menace  to  the  Republicans  of  the  whole  State We 

cannot  doubt  that  the  effect  of  all  these  things  was  to  prevent  a  full, 
free,  and  fair  election,  and  to  intimidate  the  colored  voters  and  the  white 
Republicans."  2 

So  the  transformation  had  not  occurred  in  August,  1874.  I 
come  down  now  to  1875,  to  the  late  autumn  of  that  year,  and 
ask  if  the  transformation  had  then  occurred.  I  will  not  detain 
the  House  by  reading  the  testimony  of  the  cloud  of  witnesses 
which  gathers  around  me,  but  will  print  a  few  specimens  of 
the  proof,  most  of  them  relating  to  the  recent  State  election  in 
Mississippi.  While  I  say,  to  the  honor  of  the  gentleman  from 
Mississippi,  that  in  his  own  State  he  spoke  against  the  White 
Line,  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  he  was  not  supported  by 
like  action  on  the  part  of  the  great  mass  of  his  political  asso 
ciates.  With  the  permission  of  the  House  I  will  quote  from  a 
number  of  papers  in  his  State,  which  say  with  the  utmost  bold 
ness  that  though  Colonel  Lamar  spoke  against  the  White  Line, 
and  though  the  State  Convention  ignored  it,  yet  back  of  the 
Convention,  and  back  of  the  gentleman  himself,  the  White  Line 
was  formed  and  carried  the  election,  and  intends  in  the  same 
way  to  carry  the  next.  The  quotations  need  no  comment. 
First  I  quote  the  Columbus  Index  of  August,  1875. 

"  Already  do  we  see  signs  in  our  State  of  the  good  effects  of  the  color 
line.  Prior  to  its  organization  there  was  no  harmony  or  unity  of  action 
among  the  whites.  The  negroes  had  perfected  their  race  in  organiza- 

1  Mr.  Hoar.  2  House  Report  No.  261,  2d  Sess.  43d  Cong.,  p.  18. 


AND   THE    GOVERNMENT.  369 

tions,  and  were  able  to  control  the  politics  of  the  State.  The  whites, 
after  having  attempted  every  scheme  to  secure  an  intelligent  government 
and  a  co-operation  of  the  negroes  in  this  behalf,  wisely  gave  it  up,  and 
determined  to  organize  themselves  as  a  race,  and  meet  the  issue  that  had 
presented  itself  for  ten  years. 

"  Now  we  recognize  the  fact  that  the  State  is  most  thoroughly  aroused, 
more  harmonious  in  its  actions,  and  more  determined  to  succeed  in  the 

coming  election  than  it  has  been  since  the  days  of  secession So 

the  grand  result  of  the  color  line  has  been  accomplished  in  organizing 
the  white  people  of  the  State,  and  placing  them  in  a  position  to  control 
the  coming  election.  No  other  policy  could  h'ave  effected  the  result. 
....  We  stand  on  the  color  line,  because  it  is  tacitly  indorsed  by  the 
platform,  and  because  we  believe  it  to  be  the  only  means  of  redeeming 

this  and  other  countries  from  negro  rule The  necessities  of  the 

State  of  Mississippi  recall  this  injunction,  and  give  emphasis  to  the  par 
allel, —  Put  none  but  Democrats  in  office.  We  have  gained  a  great 
victory,  —  Bull  Run  or  Chickamauga.  Let  us  follow  it  up  to  the  secur 
ing  of  results.  The  white  people  must  be  welded  into  one  compact 
organization.  All  differences  of  opinion,  all  personal  aspirations,  must 
be  settled  within  our  own  organization,  and  from  its  decision  there  must 
be  no  appeal.  Otherwise  each  recurring  election  produces  its  dis 
orders." 

In  July,  1875,  the  Raymond  Gazette,  whose  editor  is  now  a 
member  of  the  Legislature,  and  which  is  published  only  eight 
miles  from  Clinton,  where  the  bloody  riot  of  last  September 
occurred,  made  this  startling  demand :  — 

"  There  are  those  who  think  that  the  leaders  of  the  radical  party  have 
carried  this  system  of  fraud  and  falsehood  just  far  enough  in  Hinds 
County,  and  that  the  time  has  come  when  it  should  be  stopped,  —  peace 
ably  if  possible,  forcibly  if  necessary.  And  to  this  end  it  is  proposed 
that,  whenever  a  radical  powwow  is  to  be  held,  the  nearest  anti-radical 
club  appoint  a  committee  of  ten  discreet,  intelligent,  and  reputable 
citizens,  fully  identified  with  the  interests  of  the  neighborhood  and  well 
known  as  men  of  veracity,  to  attend  as  representatives  of  the  tax-payers 
of  the  neighborhood  and  the  county  and  true  friends  of  the  negroes 
assembled,  and  that  whenever  the  radical  speakers  proceed  to  mislead 
the  negroes,  and  open  with  falsehoods  and  deceptions  and  misrepresen 
tations,  the  committee  stop  them  right  then  and  there,  and  compel  them 
to  tell  truth  or  quit  the  stand." 

The  Clinton  riot  was  the  direct  outgrowth  of  this  demand. 
What  followed?  The  same  paper,  of  July  26,  1876,  shows 
that  this  vicious  policy  has  been  renewed  in  Hinds  County,  as 
follows:  — 

VOL.   II.  24 


370 


THE   DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 


"  The  county  executive  committee  of  the  Democrats  and  Conserva 
tives  of  Hinds  County  held  a  meeting  at  Raymond  the  other  day,  at 
which,  on  motion,  it  was  ordered  that  each  club  in  the  county  appoint  a 
special  committee,  whose  business  it  shall  be  to  attend  any  and  every 
radical  meeting  held  in  its  vicinity,  and  that  each  of  said  committees 
shall  report  to  its  own  club  and  •  to  this  executive  committee  the  action, 
attendance,  and  general  tone  and  temper  of  said  meeting. 

"  A  very  general  system  of  coercion  was  adopted  throughout  the 
South  by  Democratic  clubs  and  associations,  agreeing  not  to  employ 
negroes  who  voted  the  Republican  ticket,  not  to  lease  them  lands,  nor 
to  furnish  them  with  or  allow  them  to  obtain  for  themselves  any  means 
of  subsistence." 

Ex-Governor  Benjamin  G.  Humphreys,  of  Mississippi,  made 
a  speech  at  a  reunion  of  the  Thirteenth  Mississippi  Confederate 
Infantry,  at  Meridian,  on  the  22d  of  November,  1875,  in  which 
he  said :  — 

"  We  have  surrendered  none  of  our  convictions  and  still  claim  the  right 
of  vindication.  In  looking  back  at  our  past  actions  and  motives,  and 
the  wrongs  we  have  suffered  and  are  still  suffering,  we  confess  that  we 
have  no  regrets  for  the  choice  we  made  between  the  '  higher-law ' 
license  of  majorities  in  the  Union  and  the  sacred  security  of  self-govern 
ment  in  the  States,  between  the  Federal  and  Confederate  governments. 
We  are  not  conscious  of  a  solitary  dereliction  of  duty,  either  as  citizens 
or  soldiers,  and  feel  that  truth,  reason,  and  religion  exculpate  us  from 
wrong-doing.  We  know  we  were  right,  and  though  crushed  to  earth  we 
shall  ever  remember,  and  teach  our  children  to  remember,  our  cause  was 
just.  We  are  still  proud  of  the  cause  and  glory  in  the  fight  we  made." 

After  the  election,  the  Meridian  Mercury  of  November  20, 
1875,  said:  — 

"  We  have  to  contend  with  the  blunder  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment 
while  it  stands  as  best  we  can.  Ridiculous  appeals  to  the  reason  and 
judgment  of  the  negro  have  been  the  cause  of  incalculable  injury  in  the 
inflation  of  his  vanity  and  making  him  believe  he  was  of  real  conse 
quence  as  a  governing  element  in  the  body  politic.  Now  that  the  negro 
in  this  State  is  down,  and  his  personal  self-conceit  well  knocked  out  of 
him,  it  is  probably  a  fit  time  for  the  white  people  to  impress  upon  him  that 
the  white  people  will  in  future  control  the  politics  of  this  State,  and  that 
he  should  keep  himself  in  his  proper  sphere  and  leave  to  the  intelligent 
white  man  the  exclusive  use  of  state-craft  for  the  best  interest  of  both 
races.  Impress  him  continually  with  the  idea  of  his  unfitness  for  the 
ballot,  and  his  proper  place  on  election  day  away  from  the  polls." 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT.  371 

I  could  fill  many  columns  of  the  Congressional  Record  with 
evidences  like  those  above  quoted  from  the  gentleman's  own 
State.1  In  the  light  of  this  testimony,  is  it  possible  for  us  to 
believe  that  the  transformation  had  occurred  in  the  gentle 
man's  own  State  where  the  election  of  the  Legislature  that  made 
him  a  Senator  took  place?  If  the  testimony  of  the  Democratic 
press  of  Mississippi  is  to  be  credited,  the  late  election  in  that 
State  was  tainted  with  fraud  and  managed  by  intimidation  un 
paralleled  by  anything  in  our  recent  political  history.  Let  the 
gentleman  explain  this  striking  fact.  There  are  many  thousand 
more  colored  than  white  voters  in  Mississippi.  In  the  election 
of  1873  the  Republican  party  had  22,976  majority;  in  the  elec 
tion  last  autumn  the  Democratic  party  had  30,922.  How  came 
about  this  change  of  more  than  53,000  in  the  short  space  of  two 
years,  if  there  was  a  free  and  uncoerced  vote  of  the  electors  of 
that  State? 

The  President  of  the  United  States  has  sent  to  the  Senate  a 
letter  addressed  by  him  to  Governor  Chamberlain,  of  South 
Carolina,  under  date  of  July  26,  1876,  from  which  I  read  a  few 
words  bearing  upon  the  point  I  am  now  discussing:  — 

"  The  scene  at  Hamburg,  as  cruel,  bloodthirsty,  wanton,  unprovoked, 
and  as  uncalled  for  as  it  was,  is  only  a  repetition  of  the  course  that  has 
been  pursued  in  other  Southern  States  within  the  last  few  years,  notably 
in  Mississippi  and  Louisiana.  Mississippi  is  governed  to-day  by  officials 
chosen  through  fraud  and  violence,  such  as  would  scarcely  be  accredited 
to  savages,  much  less  to  a  civilized  and  Christian  people.  How  long 
these  things  are  to  continue,  or  what  is  to  be  the  final  remedy,  the  Great 
Ruler  of  the  universe  only  knows.  But  I  have  an  abiding  faith  that  the 
remedy  will  come,  and  come  speedily,  and  I  earnestly  hope  that  it  will 
come  peacefully.  There  has  never  been  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the 
North  to  humiliate  the  South ;  nothing  is  claimed  for  one  State  that  is 
not  freely  accorded  to  all  others,  unless  it  may  be  the  right  to  kill  ne 
groes  and  Republicans  without  fear  of  punishment  and  without  loss  of 
caste  or  reputation.  This  .has  seemed  to  be  a  privilege  claimed  by  a 
few  States."2 

But  it  is  aside  from  my  purpose  to  go  into  the  question  of 
the  validity  of  the  late  election  in  Mississippi.  That  subject  is 
being  investigated  by  a  committee  of  the  Senate,  and  I  shall 

1  Much  of  the  evidence  actually  presented  by  Mr.  Garfield  is   here   omitted. 
He  made  quotations  similar  to  the  above  from  a  large  number  of  Southern,  and 
especially  Mississippi,  newspapers. 

2  See  McPherson's  Handbook  of  Politics,  1876,  p.  207. 


372  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

be  surprised  if,  from  the  evidence  they  have  taken,  they  do  not 
concur  in  the  opinion  I  have  expressed.  I  desire  gentlemen  to 
remember  that  the  great  question  I  am  discussing  is,  Had 
the  great  transformation  taken  place  among  the  gentlemen's 
constituents  in  the  late  autumn  of  1875?  The  answer  of  his 
own  people  is  overwhelmingly  in  the  negative.  I  now  ask,  Had 
the  transformation  occurred  in  the  winter  and  spring  of  the 
present  year?  I  hold  in  my  hand  the  report  of  an  address  of 
Rev.  Taylor  Martin,  of  Charlotte,  North  Carolina,  the  town  to 
which  Congress  lately  gave  a  mint  building  to  be  used  for 
school  purposes.  The  address  was  made  on  Decoration  Day, 
May  5,  1876.  I  quote:  — 

"  The  South  is  to-day  ruled  over  by  the  miserable  thrall  of  Yankee- 
dom ;  but  they  cannot  muzzle  our  chivalry  and  patriotic  devotion  to  the 
'  lost  cause.'  We  have  fought  for  our  rights,  but  in  God's  dispensation 
we  are  vanquished,  but  not  cowed.  Slavery  was  a  divine  institution, 
and  we  must  have  that  institution,  or  the  South  will  ever  be  bankrupt. 
They  speak  of  our  cause  as  the  'lost  cause.'  If  so,  shall  it  be  lost 
forever  ?  No  !  a  new  generation  has  sprung  up,  and  at  a  not  far  distant 
day  there  will  be  '  stars  and  bars  '  floating  proudly  over  our  sunny  South. 
In  the  next  political  campaign  we  must,  even  if  in  the  minority,  support 
a  Southern  man  who  will  build  up  our  interests  and  hurl  the  Yankee 
pickpockets  from  our  midst.  We  are  to-day  united  to  the  Puritanical 
host  by  an  artificial  tie ;  but  we  are  a  distinct  people,  and  God  and  the 
right  will  enable  us  to  show  to  the  world  the  truth  and  the  equity  of  our 
claims.  Our  statesmen  now  in  Congress  are  the  cream  of  that  body,  and 
are  the  only  element  that  reflects  credit  on  the  United  States.  Is  it  not 
better  to  hang  on  to  the  '  lost  cause '  than  to  stay  in  a  government  of 
corruption?  " 

MR.  YEATES.  With  the  consent  of  the  gentleman  from  Ohio,  I  want 
to  state  that  I  have  seen  under  the  signature  of  the  gentleman  from 
whom  he  has  just  quoted  a  statement  denying  in  toto  every  word  of  what 
has  just  been  read  ;  and  a  number  of  gentlemen  who  heard  the  speech 
certify  that  the  quotation  is  false  in  every  particular. 

If  that  be  the  fact  I  will  cheerfully  strike  the  extract  from 
my  speech.  I  never  before  heard  its  authenticity  denied. 

MR.  YEATES.     There  is  no  doubt  of  the  correctness  of  my  statement. 

Let  the  extract  and  the  denial  stand  together.  But,  sir,  I  will 
quote  a  recent  utterance  of  public  opinion,  the  authenticity  of 
which  I  am  quite  sure  gentlemen  will  not  deny.  They  will  nei- 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT.  373 

ther  deny  the  ability  nor  the  prominence  of  Robert  Toombs  of 
Georgia,  formerly  a  Senator  of  the  United  States,  and  afterwards 
the  Confederate  Secretary  of  State.  On  the  25th  of  January, 
1876,  he  addressed  the  Legislature  of  Georgia  by  invitation; 
and  the  following  extract  from  his  speech  will  show  how  far  the 
transformation  has  taken  place  in  him  and  his  followers :  — 

"  We  got  a  good  many  honest  fellows  into  the  first  legislature,  but  I 
will  tell  you  how  we  got  them  there.  I  will  tell  you  the  truth.  The 
newspapers  won't  tell  it  to  you.  We  got  them  there  by  carrying  the  black 
vote,  by  intimidation  and  bribery,  and  I  helped  to  do  it !  I  would 
have  scorned  the  people  if  they  had  not  done  it !  And  I  will  buy  them 
as  long  as  they  put  beasts  to  go  to  the  ballot-box  !  No  man  should  be 
given  the  elective  franchise  who  has  not  the  intelligence  to  use  it  prop 
erly.  The  rogue  should  not  have  it,  for  government  is  made  to  punish 
him ;  the  fool  should  not  have  it,  for  government  is  made  to  take  care  of 
him.  Now  these  miserable  wretches  —  the  Yankees  —  have  injected 
five  millions  of  savages  into  the  stomach  of  our  body  politic,  and  the 
man  who  says  he  accepts  negro  suffrage,  I  say,  accursed  be  he  !  I  will 
accept  everything  ;  I  will  accept  Grant  and  empire  before  I  will  accept 
such  a  Democrat !  The  poor  ignorant  negro,  —  talk  of  him  governing 
you  and  me  !  It  takes  the  highest  order  of  intellect  to  govern  the  people, 
and  these  poor  wretches  talk  of  governing  us  !  Why,  they  can't  perpet 
uate  their  own  negro  power.  In  the  counties  where  they  were  in  the 
majority  they  did  not  preserve  their  power  and  perpetuate  their  rule. 
My  remedy  helped  us  to  break  that  up.  We  carried  them  with  us  by 
bribery  and  intimidation.  I  advised  it  and  paid  my  money  for  it !  You 
all  know  it,  but  won't  say  it.  But  I  will  say  it,  for  I  fear  no  man,  and  I  am 
prepared  to  render  an  account  to  none  but  the  Great  Judge,  before 
whom  I  must  appear  in  a  few  years ;  for  my  enemies  have  thought  my 
services  to  my  country  so  great,  that  they  have  done  me  the  honor  to 
exclude  me  from  again  serving  my  people.  I  contest  that  honor  with 
our  chief,  Mr.  Davis.  I  am  just  as  good  as  he  is,  and  he  is  no  better 
than  I  am.  I  demand  that  they  shall  place  me  beside  him.  I  thank 
them  for  it !  It  is  very  few  things  that  I  have  to  thank  them  for,  but  I 
do  thank  them  for  that." 

'  In  view  of  the  testimony  I  have  offered,  we  must  wait  for  an 
answer  to  the  question,  When  and  where  did  the  transforma 
tion  occur?  It  occurred  long  ago  in  the  philosophical  .and  pa 
triotic  mind  and  heart  of  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi ;  but 
has  it  occurred  in  the  majority  of  the  eleven  millions  who  joined 
with  him  to  destroy  the  Union,  to  perpetuate  slavery,  to  defend 
the  cause  that  is  now  "lost"?  Had  it  occurred  last  week  in 


374 


THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 


the  town  of  Meridian,  in  the  gentleman's  own  State.  I  quote 
from  the  Meridian  Mercury  of  July  29th,  1876. 

"  We  heard  Lamar's  Scooba  speech,  and  while  his  truth  to  his  beloved 
South,  perhaps,  flamed  out  a  little  more  than  common,  we  remarked 
nothing  inconsistent  with  his  other  speeches  we  had  heard  or  read  of. 
The  morning  of  his  arrival  here  the  Mercury  contained  a  sharp  fling  at 
him  about  the  Sumner  oration,  and  that  night  at  the  court-house  he  ven 
tured  to  chastise  us  sharply  for  it,  in  the  house  of  our  friends,  and  was 
boisterously  applauded.  We  consoled  ourself  that  the  applause  might 
have  been  more  in  compliment  to  the  excellence  of  the  oratory  than  in 
satisfaction  at  our  castigation.  We  had  our  revenge,  though,  in  taking 
which  we  inaugurated  the  policy  of  the  canvass  in  spite  of  him  which 
carried  the  State  like  a  prairie  on  fire.  He,  and  others  who  wanted  to 
dress  up  in  a  nice  starched  and  ironed  white  shirt  that  would  shame  the 
bloody  shirt,  established  a  laundry  at  Jackson,  on  the  4th  of  August,  and 
a  great  many  patronized  it  and  came  out  in  snowy  white  fronts  to  pre 
sent  themselves  creditably  before  the  Northern  public  sentiment.  In 
their  party  powwow  of  that  day,  disregarding  the  deep  under-current  of 
public  opinion,  they  declared  by  formal  resolution  against  the  White  Line 
policy. 

"  The  Mercury  had  sounded  the  depths  of  that  under-current,  and  we 
knew  it  would  not  do.  In  heart  we  felt  with  the  platform,  but  our  judg 
ment  assured  us  that  the  canvass  must  be  lost  on  it,  and  that  to  practise 
it  were  a  fatal  error.  We  denounced  the  platform  upon  the  instant,  and 
took  what  care  we  could  that  Lamar's  speeches  upon  his  national  repu 
tation  should  not  ruin  our  canvass.  We  called  upon  the  people  to 
'  step  across  the  platform '  .  .  .  .  and  form  the  White  Line  beyond  it. 
The  summons  was  music  to  their  ears,  and  the  unconquered  and  un 
conquerable  Saxon  race  of  Mississippi  rallied  to  the  slogan 

We  have  got  the  State ;  we  know  how  we  got  it ;  we  know  how  to  keep 
it;  and  we  are  going  to  keep  it  without  regard  to  race  or  numerical 
majority." 

Mr.  Chairman,  after  the  facts  I  have  cited,  am  I  not  warranted 
in  raising  a  grave  doubt  whether  the  transformation  has  occurred 
at  all  except  in  a  few  patriotic  and  philosophic  minds?  The  light 
gleams  first  on  the  mountain  peaks ;  but  shadows  and  dark 
ness  linger  in  the  valley.  It  is  the  valley  masses  of  those  lately 
in  rebellion  that  the  light  of  this  beautiful  philosophy,  which 
I  honor,  has  not  penetrated.  Is  it  not  safer  to  withhold  from 
them  the  custody  and  supreme  control  of  the  precious  treasures 
of  the  republic  until  the  midday  sun  of  liberty,  justice,  and 
equal  laws  shall  shine  upon  them  with  unclouded  ray? 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT. 


375 


In  view  of  all  the  facts,  considering  the  centuries  of  influ 
ences  that  brought  on  the  great  struggle,  is  it  not  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  it  will  require  yet  more  time  to  effect  the  great 
transformation.  Did  not  the  distinguished  gentleman  from 
Massachusetts  l  sum  up  the  case  fairly  and  truthfully  when  he 
said  of  the  South,  in  his  Louisiana  report  of  1874:  "  They  sub 
mitted  to  the  national  authority,  not  because  they  would,  but 
because  they  must.  They  abandoned  the  doctrine  of  State  sov 
ereignty,  which  they  had  claimed  made  their  duty  to  the  States 
paramount  to  that  due  to  the  nation  in  case  of  conflict,  not 
because  they  would,  but  because  they  must.  They  submitted 
to  the  Constitutional  Amendments,  which  rendered  their  for 
mer  slaves  their  equals  in  all  political  rights,  not  because  they 
would,  but  because  they  must.  The  passions  which  led  to  the 
war,  the  passions  which  the  war  excited,  were  left  untamed  and 
unchecked,  except  so  far  as  their  exhibition  was  restrained  by 
the  arm  of  power." 

The  gentleman  from  Mississippi  says  there  is  no  possibility 
that  the  South  will  again  control  national  affairs,  if  the  Democ 
racy  be  placed  again  in  power.  How  is  this?  We  are  told 
that  the  South  will  vote  as  a  unit  for  Tilden  and  Hendricks. 
Suppose  those  gentlemen  also  carry  New  York  and  Indiana. 
Does  the  gentleman  believe  that  a  Northern  minority  of  the 
Democracy  will  control  the  administration?  Impossible!  But 
if  they  did,  would  it  better  the  case? 

Let  me  put  the  question  in  another  form.  Suppose,  gentle 
men  of  the  South,  you  had  won  the  victory  in  the  war ;  that 
you  had  captured  Washington  and  Gettysburg,  Philadelphia  and 
New  York ;  and  we  of  the  North,  defeated  and  conquered,  had 
lain  prostrate  at  your  feet.  Do  you  believe  that  by  this  time 
you  would  be  ready  and  willing  to  intrust  to  us  —  our  Garri 
sons,  our  Phillipses,  our  Wades,  and  the  great  array  of  those 
who  were  the  leaders  of  our  thought — to  intrust  to  us  the 
fruits  of  your  victory,  the  enforcement  of  your  doctrines  of 
State  sovereignty  and  the  work  of  extending  the  domain  of 
slavery?  Do  you  think  so?  And  if  not,  will  you  not  pardon 
us  when  we  tell  you  that  we  are  not  quite  ready  to  trust  the 
precious  results  of  the  nation's  victory  in  your  hands?  Let  it 
be  constantly  borne  in  mind  that  I  am  not  debating  a  question 
of  equal  rights  and  privileges  within  the  Union,  but  whether 

i  Mr.  Hoar. 


3;6  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

those  who  so  lately  sought  to  destroy  it  ought  to  be  chosen  to 
control  its  destiny  for  the  next  four  years. 

I  hope  my  public  life  has  given  proof  that  I  do  not  cherish  a 
spirit  of  malice  or  bitterness  toward  the  South.  Perhaps  they 
will  say  I  have  no  right  to  advise  them ;  but  at  the  risk  of  being 
considered  impertinent  I  will  express  my  conviction  that  the 
bane  of  the  Southern  people,  for  the  last  twenty-five  years,  has 
been  that  they  have  trusted  the  advice  of  the  Democratic  party. 
The  very  remedy  which  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi  offers 
for  the  ills  of  his  people  has  been  and  still  is  their  bane.  The 
Democratic  party  has  been  the  evil  genius  of  the  South  in  all 
these  years.  They  yielded  their  own  consciences  to  you  on  the 
slavery  question,  and  led  you  to  believe  that  the  North  would 
always  yield.  They  made  you  believe  that  we  would  not  fight 
to  save  the  Union.  They  made  you  believe  that,  if  we  ever 
dared  to  cross  the  Potomac  or  Ohio  to  put  down  your  rebellion, 
we  could  only  do  so  across  the  dead  bodies  of  many  hundred 
thousands  of  Northern  Democrats.  They  made  you  believe  that 
the  war  would  begin  in  the  streets  of  our  Northern  cities ;  that 
we  were  a  community  of  shopkeepers,  of  sordid  money-getters, 
and  would  not  stand  against  your  fiery  chivalry.  You  thought 
us  cold,  slow,  lethargic ;  and  in  some  respects  we  are.  There 
are  some  differences  between  us  that  spring  from  origin  and 
influences  of  climate,  —  differences  not  unlike  the  description  of 
the  poet,  — 

"  Bright  and  fierce  and  fickle  is  the  South, 
And  dark  .and  true  and  tender  is  the  North,"  — 

differences  that  kept  us  from  a  good  understanding. 

You  thought  that  our  coldness,  our  slowness,  indicated  a  lack 
of  spirit  and  of  patriotism,  and  you  were  encouraged  in  that 
belief  by  most  of  the  Northern  Democracy;  but  not  by  all. 
They  warned  you  at  Charleston  in  1860.  And  when  the  great 
hour  struck,  there  were  many  noble  Democrats  in  the  North 
who  lifted  the  flag  of  the  Union  far  above  the  flag  of  party :  but 
there  was  a  residuum  of  Democracy,  called  in  the  slang  of  the 
time  "  Copperheads,"  who  were  your  evil  genius  from  the  begin 
ning  of  the  war  till  its  close,  and  ever  since.  Some  of  them  sat 
in  these  seats,  and  never  rejoiced  when  we  won  a  battle,  and 
never  grieved  when  we  lost  one.  They  were  the  men  who  sent 
their  Vallandighams  to  give  counsel  and  encouragement  to  your 
rebellion,  and  to  buoy  you  up  with  the  false  hope  that  at  last 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT. 


377 


you  would  conquer  by  the  aid  of  their  treachery.  I  honor 
you,  gentlemen  of  the  South,  ten  thousand  times  more  than  I 
honor  such  Northern  Democrats. 

I  said  they  were  your  evil  genius.  Why,  in  1864,  when  we 
were  almost  at  the  culminating  point  of  the  war,  their  Vallan- 
dighams  and  Tildens  (and  both  of  these  men  were  on  the  com 
mittee  of  resolutions)  uttered  the  .declaration,  as  the  voice  of 
the  Democracy,  that  the  war  to  preserve  ,the  Union  was  a  fail 
ure,  and  that  hostilities  should  cease.  They  asked  us  to  sound 
the  recall  on  our  bugles,  to  call  our  conquering  armies  back 
from  the  contest,  and  trust  to  their  machinations  to  save  their 
party  at  the  expense  of  a  broken  and  ruined  country.  Brave 
soldiers  of  the  lost  cause,  did  you  not,  even  in  that  hour  of  peril, 
in  your  hearts  loathe  them  with  supremest  scorn?  But  for  their 
treachery  at  Chicago  in  1864  the  war  might  have  ended,  and  a 
hundred  thousand  precious  lives  been  saved.  But  your  evil 
genius  pursued  you,  and  the  war  went  on.  And  later,  when  you 
would  have  accepted  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  and  restora 
tion  without  universal  suffrage,  the  same  evil  genius  held  you 
back.  In  1868  it  still  deceived  you.  In  1872  it  led  you  into 

"  A  gulf  profound  as  that  Serbonian  bog 
Betwixt  Damiata  and  Mount  Casius  old, 
Where  armies  whole  have  sunk." 

Let  not  the  eloquence  of  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi  lure 
you  again  to  its  brink. 

Mr.  Chairman,  it  is  now  time  to  inquire  as  to  the  fitness  of 
this  Democratic  party  to  take  control  of  our  great  nation  and 
its  vast  and  important  interests  for  the  next  four  years.  I  put 
the  question  to  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi,  What  has  the 
Democratic  party  done  to  merit  that  great  trust?  He  tried  to 
show  in  what  respects  it  would  not  be  dangerous :  I  ask  him 
to  show  in  what  it  would  be  safe.  I  affirm,  and  I  believe  I  do 
not  misrepresent  the  great  Democratic  party,  that  in  the  last 
sixteen  years  they  have  not  advanced  one  great  national  idea 
that  is  not  to-day  as  dead  as  Julius  Caesar.  And  if  any  Demo 
crat  here  will  rise  and  name  a  great  national  doctrine  his  party 
has  advanced,  within  that  time,  that  is  now  alive  and  believed  in, 
I  will  yield  to  hear  him.  [A  pause.]  In  default  of  an  answer, 
I  will  attempt  to  prove  my  negative. 

What  were  the  great  central  doctrines  of  the  Democratic 
party  in  the  Presidential  struggle  of  1860?  The  followers  of 


3;8  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

Breckinridge  said  slavery  had  a  right  to  go  wherever  the  Con 
stitution  goes.  Do  you  believe  that  to-day?  Is  there  a  man 
on  this  continent  who  holds  that  doctrine  to-day?  Not  one. 
That  doctrine  is  dead  and  buried.  The  other  wing  of  the 
Democracy  held  that  slavery  might  be  established  in  the  Ter 
ritories  if  the  people  wanted  it.  Does  anybody  hold  that  doc 
trine  to-day?  Dead,  absolutely  dead  ! 

Come  down  to  1864.  Your  party,  under  the  lead  of  Tilden 
and  Vallandigham,  declared  the  war  to  save  the  Union  a  failure. 
Do  you  believe  that  doctrine  to-day?  That  doctrine  was  shot 
to  death  by  the  guns  of  Farragut  at  Mobile,  and  driven  by 
Sheridan,  in  a  tempest  of  fire,  from  the  valley  of  the  Shenan- 
doah,  less  than  a  month  after  its  birth  at  Chicago. 

Come  down  to  1868.  You  declared  the  Constitutional  Amend 
ments  revolutionary  and  void.  Does  any  man  on  this  floor  say 
so  to-day?  If  so,  let  him  rise  and  declare  it.  Do  you  believe 
in  the  doctrine  of  the  Brodhead  letter  of  1868,  that  the  so- 
called  Constitutional  Amendments  should  be  disregarded?  No; 
the  gentleman  from  Mississippi  accepts  the  results  of  the  war ! 
The  Democratic  doctrine  of  1868  is  dead ! 

I  walk  across  that  Democratic  camping-ground  as  in  a  grave 
yard.  Under  my  feet  resound  the  hollow  echoes  of  the  dead. 
There  lies  slavery,  a  black  marble  column  at  the  head  of  its 
grave,  on  which  I  read :  "  Died  in  the  flames  of  the  civil  war ; 
loved  in  its  life ;  lamented  in  its  death ;  followed  to  its  bier  by 
its  only  mourner,  the  Democratic  party."  But  dead  !  And  here 
is  a  double  grave :  "  Sacred  to  the  memory  of  Squatter  Sov 
ereignty.  Died  in  the  campaign  of  1860."  On  the  reverse 
side :  "  Sacred  to  the  memory  of  Dred  Scott  and  the  Breck 
inridge  doctrine."  Both  dead  at  the  hands  of  Abraham  Lin 
coln  !  And  here  is  a  monument  of  brimstone :  "  Sacred  to  the 
memory  of  the  doctrine  that  the  war  against  the  Rebellion  is  a 
failure;  Tilden  et  Vallandigham  fccenmt,  A.  D.  1864."  Dead 
on  the  field  of  battle ;  shot  to  death  by  the  million  guns  of  the 
republic.  The  doctrines  of  Secession  and  of  State  Sovereignty. 
Dead.  Expired  in  the  flames  of  civil  war,  amid  the  blazing  raft 
ers  of  the  Confederacy,  except  that  the  modern  ^Eneas,  in  the 
person  of  the  honorable  gentleman  from  the  Appomattox  dis 
trict  of  Virginia,1  fleeing  out  of  the  flames  of  that  ruin,  bears  on 
his  back  the  Anchises  of  State  sovereignty,  and  brings  it  here. 
All  else  is  dead. 

1  Mr.  Tucker. 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT. 


379 


Now,  gentlemen,  are  you  sad,  are  you  sorry  for  these  deaths? 
Are  you  not  glad  that  Secession  is  dead?  that  Slavery  is  dead? 
that  Squatter  Sovereignty  is  dead  ?  that  the  doctrine  of  the  fail 
ure  of  the  war  is  dead  ?  Then  you  are  glad  that  you  were  out 
voted  in  1860,  in  1864,  in  1868,  and  in  1872.  If  you  have  tears 
to  shed  over  these  losses,  shed  them  in  the  graveyard,  but  not 
in  this  House  of  living  men.  I  know  that  many  a  Southern 
man  rejoices  that  these  issues  are  dead.  The  gentleman  from 
Mississippi  has  clothed  with  eloquence  his  joy. 

Now,  gentlemen,  if  you  yourselves  are  glad  that  you  have 
suffered  defeat  during  the  last  sixteen  years,  will  you  not  be 
equally  glad  when  you  suffer  defeat  next  November?  But  par 
don  that  remark ;  I  regret  it ;  I  would  use  no  bravado. 

Now,  gentlemen,  come  with  me  for  a  moment  into  the  camp 
of  the  Republican  party  and  review  its  career.  Our  central 
doctrine  in  1860  was  that  slavery  should  never  extend  itself 
over  another  foot  of  American  soil.  Is  that  doctrine  dead? 
It  is  folded  away  like  a  victorious  banner ;  its  truth  is  alive 
forevermore  on  this  continent.  In  1864  we  declared  that  we 
would  put  down  the  Rebellion  and  Secession.  And  that  doc 
trine  lives  and  will  live  when  the  second  centennial  has  arrived ! 
Freedom,  national,  universal,  and  perpetual,  —  our  great  Con 
stitutional  Amendments,  —  are  they  alive  or  dead  ?  Alive,  thank 
the  God  that  shields  both  Liberty  and  Union.  And  our  national 
credit,  saved  from  the  assaults  of  Pendleton,  saved  from  the 
assaults  of  those  who  struck  it  later,  rising  higher  and  higher 
at  home  and  abroad,  and  now  in  doubt  only  lest  its  chief,  its 
only  enemy,  the  Democracy,  should  triumph  in  November. 

Mr.  Chairman,  ought  the  Republican  party  to  surrender  its 
truncheon  of  command  to  the  Democracy?  The  gentleman 
from  Mississippi  says,  if  this  were  England,  the  ministry,  with 
such  a  state  of  things  as  we  have  here,  would  go  out  in  twenty- 
four  hours.  Ah,  yes  !  that  is  an  ordinary  case  of  change  of 
administration.  But  if  this  were  England,  what  would  she  have 
done  at  the  end  of  the  war?  England  made  one  such  mistake 
as  the  gentleman  asks  this  country  to  make,  when  she  threw 
away  the  achievements  of  the  grandest  man  that  ever  trod 
her  highways  of  power.  Oliver  Cromwell  had  overturned  the 
throne  of  despotic  power,  and  had  lifted  his  country  to  a  place 
of  masterful  greatness  among  the  nations  of  the  earth;  and 
when,  after  his  death,  his  great  sceptre  was  transferred  to  a 


380  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

weak  though  not  unlineal  hand,  his  country,  in  a  moment  of 
reactionary  blindness,  brought  back  the  Stuarts.  England  did 
not  recover  from  that  folly  until,  in  1688,  the  Prince  of  Orange 
drove  from  her  island  the  last  of  that  weak  and  wicked  line. 
Did  she  afterward  repeat  the  blunder?  For  more  than  fifty 
years,  Pretenders  were  seeking  the  throne ;  and  the  wars  on  her 
coast,  in  Scotland,  and  in  Ireland,  threatened  the  overthrow  of 
the  new  dynasty  and  the  disruption  of  the  empire.  But  the 
solid  phlegm,  the  magnificent  pluck,  the  roundabout  common- 
sense  of  Englishmen,  steadied  the  throne  till  the  cause  of  the 
Stuarts  was  dead.  They  did  not  change  as  soon  as  the  battle 
was  over,  and  let  the  Stuarts  come  back  to  power. 

And  how  was  it  in  our  own  country,  when  our  fathers  had 
triumphed  in  the  war  of  the  Revolution?  When  the  victory 
was  won,  did  they  open  their  arms  to  the  Loyalists,  as  they 
called  themselves,  or  Tories,  as  our  fathers  called  them?  Did 
they  invite  them  back?  Not  one.  They  confiscated  their  lands. 
The  States  passed  decrees  that  no  Tory  should  live  on  our  soil. 
And  when  they  were  too  poor  to  take  themselves  away,  our 
fathers,  burdened  as  the  young  nation  was  with  debt,  raised 
the  money  to  transport  the  Tories  beyond  seas  or  across  the 
Canada  border.  They  went  to  England,  to  France,  to  Nova 
Scotia,  to  New  Brunswick,  and  especially  to  Halifax ;  and  that 
town  was  such  a  resort  for  them,  that  it  became  the  swear 
word  of  our  boyhood.  "  Go  to  Halifax  "  was  a  substitute  for 
a  more  impious,  but  not  more  opprobrious  expression.  The 
presence  of  Tories  made  it  opprobrious. 

Now  I  do  not  refer  to  this  as  an  example  which  we  ought  to 
follow.  O,  no.  We  live  in  a  milder  era,  in  an  age  softened  by 
the  more  genial  influence  of  Christian  civilization.  Witness  the 
sixty-one  men  who  fought  against  us  in  the  late  war,  and  who 
are  now  sitting  in  this  and  the  other  chamber  of  Congress. 
Every  one  of  them  is  here  because  a  magnanimous  nation  freely 
voted  that  they  might  come,  and  they  are  welcome.  Only 
please  do  not  say  that  you  are  just  now  especially  fitted  to  rule 
the  republic,  and  to  be  the  apostles  of  liberty  and  of  blessing 
to  the  colored  race. 

Gentlemen,  the  North  has  been  asked  these  many  years  to 
regard  the  sensibilities  of  the  South.  We  have  been  told  that 
you  were  brave  and  sensitive  men,  and  that  we  ought  not  to 
throw  firebrands  among  you.  Most  of  our  people  have  treated 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT.  381 

you  with  justice  and  magnanimity.  In  some  things  we  have 
given  you  just  cause  for  complaint ;  but  I  want  to  remind  you 
that  the  North  also  has  sensibilities  to  be  regarded.  The  ideas 
which  they  cherished  and  for  which  they  fought  triumphed  in 
the  highest  court,  the  court  of  last  resort,  the  field  of  battle. 
Our  people  intend  to  abide  by  that  verdict  and  to  enforce  the 
mandate.  They  rejoice  at  every  evidence  of  acquiescence. 
They  look  forward  to  the  day  when  the  distinctions  of  North 
and  South  shall  have  melted  away  in  the  grander  sentiment  of 
nationality.  But  they  do  not  think  it  is  yet  safe  to  place  the 
control  of  this  great  work  in  your  hands.  In  the  hands  of  some 
of  you  they  would  be  safe,  perfectly  safe ;  but  into  the  hands  of 
the  united  South,  joined  with  the  most  reactionary  elements  of 
the  Northern  Democracy,  our  people  will  not  yet  surrender  the 
government. 

I  am  aware  that  there  is  a  general  disposition  "  to  let  by 
gones  be  bygones,"  and  to  judge  of  parties  and  of  men,  not 
by  what  they  have  been,  but  by  what  they  are  and  what  they 
propose.  That  view  is  partly  just  and  partly  erroneous.  It  is 
just  and  wise  to  bury  resentments  and  animosities ;  it  is  errone 
ous  in  this,  that  parties  have  an  organic  life  and  spirit  of  their 
own,  —  an  individuality  and  character  which  outlive  the  men 
who  compose  them ;  and  the  spirit  and  traditions  of  a  party 
should  be  considered  in  determining  their  fitness  for  managing 
the  affairs  of  a  nation.  For  this  purpose  I  have  reviewed  the 
history  of  the  Democratic  party. 

I  have  no  disposition,  nor  would  it  be  just,  to  shield  the  Re 
publican  party  from  fair  and  searching  criticism.  It  has  been 
called  to  meet  questions  novel  and  most  difficult.  It  has  made 
many  mistakes.  It  has  stumbled  and  blundered ;  has  had  some 
bad  men  in  it ;  has  suffered  from  the  corruptions  incident  to  the 
period  following  a  great  war;  and  it  has  suffered  rebuke  and 
partial  defeat  in  consequence.  But  has  it  been  singular  and 
alone  in  these  respects?  With  all  its  faults,  I  fearlessly  chal 
lenge  gentlemen  to  compare  it  with  any  party  known  to  our 
politics.  Has  the  gentleman  shown  that  the  Democratic  party 
is  its  superior  either  in  virtue  or  intelligence?  Gentlemen,  the 
country  has  been  testing  your  qualities  during  the  last  eight 
months.  The  people  gave  you  a  probationary  trial  by  putting 
you  in  control  of  this  House.  When  you  came  here,  in  Decem 
ber  last,  the  same  distinguished  gentleman  to  whom  I  am  reply- 


382  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

ing  addressed  you,  on  the  evening  of  your  first  caucus,  in  these 
words :  "  There  has  been  for  some  time  in  the  public  mind  a 
conviction,  profound  and  all-pervading,  that  the  civil  service  of 
the  country  has  not  been  directed  from  considerations  of  public 
good,  but  from  those  of  party  profit,  and  for  corrupt,  selfish, 
and  unpatriotic  designs.  The  people  demand  at  our  hands  a 
sweeping  and  thorough  reform,  which  shall  be  conducted  in  a 
spirit  that  will  secure  the  appointment  to  places  of  trust  and 
responsibility  of  the  honest,  the  experienced,  and  the  capable." 

That  is  sound  doctrine;  and  I  have  advocated  it  here  and 
elsewhere  during  the  last  eight  years.  I  remind  him  that  the 
pernicious  doctrine  that  "to  the  victors  belong  the  spoils"  is 
of  Democratic  origin  ;  that  nearly  half  a  century  of  Democratic 
tradition  and  practice  has  fastened  it  upon  the  country.  We 
found  it,  and  have  been  cursed  by  it  ever  since;  and  though 
some  efforts  have  been  made  to  reform  the  service,  the  good 
work  is  hardly  begun.  When,  therefore,  the  gentleman  from 
Mississippi,  as  chairman  of  the  Democratic  caucus,  at  the  open 
ing  of  the  session,  announced  the  doctrine  I  have  quoted,  we 
had  reason  to  hope  that  a  new  era  of  civil  service  had  dawned 
upon  the  Capitol.  But  what  performance  has  followed  his  high- 
sounding  proclamation?  No  sooner  did  this  reforming  party 
take  possession  of  this  House,  than  it  began  the  most  whole 
sale,  sweeping  changes  of  officials,  from  the  highest  to  the 
humblest  employees  of  the  House,  that  has  been  known  in  our 
history.  Many  of  these  officers  had  come  to  us  from  our 
Democratic  predecessors ;  but  they  were  almost  all  dismissed 
to  give  place  to  hungry  partisans.  Sixty-seven  Union  soldiers, 
who  were  faithfully  doing  their  duties  here,  were  turned  out, 
and  among  those  who  filled  their  places  were  forty-seven  Rebel 
soldiers. 

MR.  HOLMAN.  As  a  matter  of  justice  and  fair  play,  the  gentleman 
from  Ohio  certainly  knows  and  should  admit  that  a  large  number  of  dis 
abled  soldiers  who  are  Republicans  are  still  holding  offices  in  this  House. 

In  answer  to  the  gentleman  from  Indiana,  I  understand  that  a 
considerable  number  of  Democratic  Union  soldiers  were  ap 
pointed  ;  but  I  was  discussing  civil  service  reform,  and  the  dec 
laration  of  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi  that  appointments  to 
office  should  not  be  used  as  party  rewards. 

I  desire  to  glance  for  a  moment  now  at  the  career  of  this 
House,  and  at  what  the  Democratic  majority  have  done  and 


AND   THE  GOVERNMENT.  383 

omitted  to  do.  Passing  by  their  treatment  of  contested  election 
cases,  their  appointment  of  officers,  employees,  committee  clerks, 
who  have  reflected  no  credit  upon  the  body,  I  desire  to  ask, 
What  valuable  work  of  general  legislation  has  this  House  ac 
complished? 

We  had  hardly  been  here  a  month,  when,  in  disregard  of  the 
deep  feelings  of  the  Northern  people,  it  was  proposed,  among 
the  first  things  demanded,  to  crown  Jefferson  Davis  with  full 
and  free  amnesty,  notwithstanding  he  had  contemptuously  de 
clared  he  never  would  ask  for  it;  and  this  must  be  done,  or  no 
amnesty  would  be  granted  to  any  one.  And  when  we  objected 
because  he  was  the  author  of  the  unutterable  atrocities  of  Libby 
and  Andersonville  prisons,  the  debate  which  followed  disclosed 
the  spirit  and  temper  of  the  dominant  party. 

We  were  hardly  in  our  seats  when  the  gentleman  from  Vir 
ginia1  brought  in  a  bill  to  repeal  a  statute  of  1866,  which  no 
Democrat  had  before  that  proposed  to  disturb,  so  far  as  I  know, 
—  a  statute  which  provided  that  no  man  who  voluntarily  went 
into  the  rebellion  against  the  Union  should  ever  hold  a  commis 
sion  in  our  army  or  navy.  And  a  Democrat  from  my  own  State,'2 
the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Military  Affairs,  became  the 
champion  of  that  bill,  and  this  House  passed  it. 

Again,  we  had  passed  a  law  to  protect  the  sanctity  and  safety 
of  the  ballot  in  national  elections,  so  that  the  horrors  of  the  Ku- 
Klux  and  the  White  Line  should  not  run  riot  at  the  polls,  and 
among  the  earliest  acts  of  this  House  was  a  clause  added  to  one 
of  the  appropriation  bills  to  repeal  the  election  law;  and  to 
effect  that  repeal  they  kept  up  the  struggle  lately  under  the 
fierce  rays  of  the  dog-star.  They  have  been  compelled  by  a 
Republican  Senate  to  abandon  the  attempt. 

But  what  have  they  neglected?  Early  in  the  session,  indeed 
in  the  first  days  of  it,  a  proposition  was  made,  introduced  by 
the  gentleman  from  Maine,3  so  to  amend  the  Constitution  as 
to  remove  forever  from  the  party  politics  of  the  country  the 
vexed  and  dangerous  question  of  church  and  state  by  prevent 
ing  the  use  of  the  school  funds  for  sectarian  purposes.  That 
amendment  was  sent  to  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary  to  sleep, 
perhaps  to  die ;  for  it  is  said  to  have  been  three  times  voted 
down  in  that  committee. 

Again,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  officially  informed  us. 

1  Mr.  Tucker.  2  Mr.  Banning.  8  Mr.  Elaine. 


384  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

that  his  power  further  to  refund  the  public  debt  was  exhausted ; 
and  that  if  we  would  give  him  the  requisite  authority  he  could 
refund  four  or  five  hundred  millions  more  at  so  favorable  a  rate 
as  to  save  the  treasury  in  interest  at  least  one  per  cent  per 
annum.  The  Senate  passed  the  bill  more  than  six  months 
ago,  but  this  House  has  taken  no  action  upon  it. 

Our  revenues  have  been  threatened  with  a  deficit,  and  our  in 
dustries  have  been  shaken  with  alarm,  by  bills  reported  to  the 
House,  but  never  brought  to  a  vote ;  for  example,  the  tariff  bill, 
floating  lazily  upon  the  stagnant  waters  of  the  House,  — 

"As  idle  as  a  painted  ship 
Upon  a  painted  ocean,"  — 

a  promise  to  free-traders,  a  threat  to  manufacturers,  —  but  with 
no  prospect  or  purpose  of  our  acting  upon  it. 

And  the  government  has  been  crippled  by  the  withholding  of 
necessary  appropriations ;  withheld,  as  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say, 
for  the  purpose  of  making  political  capital  at  the  coming  elec 
tion,  in  which  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi  desires  his  party 
to  succeed  in  the  name  of  honesty  and  reform.  His  colleague 
was  frank  enough  to  declare  that  he  wanted  to  reduce  the  gen 
eral  appropriations,  so  as  to  have  money  enough  to  devote  to 
schemes  for  his  section,  such  as  the  cotton  claims  and  the 
Southern  Pacific  Railroad. 

But  party  necessity  has  prevented  the  launching  of  many 
waiting  schemes  and  claims.  They  are  anchored  in  the  lobbies 
and  committee-rooms  of  this  House  till  the  election  is  over. 
There  is  the  bill  to  refund  the  cotton  tax  to  the  amount  of 
sixty  million  dollars,  waiting  to  be  launched  when  the  election 
is  over.  A  subsidy  of  a  hundred  million  dollars  is  waiting  up 
stairs  in  the  Pacific  Railroad  committee-room,  ready  to  come 
down  upon  us  when  the  election  is  ovef.  There  are  thirty-eight 
million  dollars  of  private  claims,  Southern  claims,  war  claims, 
waiting  to  burst  up  from  the  committee-rooms  below  stairs 
when  the  election  is  over. 

While  these  things  surround  us, — while  the  very  earth  shakes 
with  the  tramp  of  the  advancing  army  of  schemers,  who  are 
coming  "with  the  Constitution  and  an  appropriation," — the 
gentleman  from  Mississippi  thinks  that  as  a  measure  of  re 
form  the  Democratic  party  ought  at  once  to  be  brought  back 
into  power! 

Meanwhile,  what   has    been    the    chief   employment  of  this 


AND    THE    GOVERNMENT.  385 

House?  It  has  divided  itself  into  a  score  of  police  courts,  in 
the  hope  of  finding  corruption.  Like  those  insects  that  feed 
upon  sores,  it  has  hoped  to  live  and  thrive  upon  the  corruption 
of  others.  Like  that  scavenger  of  the  air,  the  carrion  bird  that 
buries  its  beak  in  the  rotten  carcass,  the  Democratic  party  seeks 
to  fatten  on  the  refuse  which  is  here  and  there  thrown  out  of 
the  public  service.  This  House  has  adopted  eighty-three  reso 
lutions  ordering  investigations  of  the  Departments,  besides  a 
legion  of  resolutions  of  inquiry.  Twenty-five  standing  commit 
tees  and  eight  select  committees,  up  to  the  2Oth  of  June,  —  in 
all  thirty-three  committees,  • —  have  been  raking  all  the  slums  of 
the  nation,  to  find,  if  possible,  some  foulness  with  which  to  im 
pregnate  the  air  during  the  coming  election.  And  what  have 
they  found?  Has  any  one  of  these  committees  found  that  a 
single  dollar  has  been  stolen  from  the  treasury  of  the  United 
States?  If  so,  let  them  declare  it.  Why,  sir,  the  Republican 
party  for  the  last  three  years  has  been  investigating  its  own  ad 
ministration  far  more  effectually  than  you  have  investigated  it. 
It  has  had  not  only  the  courage  of  its  opinions,  but  the  courage 
to  punish  its  own  rascals. 

But,  gentlemen,  after  all  that  may  be  said  of  corruption  and 
wrong-doing,  do  you  show,  on  that  ground,  any  good  reason 
why  the  Republican  party  should  surrender  the  government  to 
the  Democracy?  Would  it  be  better?  It  is  a  matter  of  official 
record  that  the  treasury  suffered  a  far  greater  percentage  of 
loss  by  mismanagement  and  defalcation  under  your  adminis 
tration  than  it  has  suffered  under  ours.  In  an  official  letter  to 
the  Senate,  under  date  of  June  19,  1876,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  copies  from  his  records  the  aggregate  losses  by  defal 
cations  and  the  loss  per  thousand  dollars,  in  each  period  of 
four  years  since  1834,  in  all  the  departments  and  bureaus  of  the 
government.  Without  quoting  the  table  at  length,  the  grand 
aggregate  stands  thus. 

From  January  I,  1834,  to  July  I,  1861,  the  total  disburse 
ments  of  the  government  were  $1,369,977,502.52;  the  total  de 
falcations  were  $12,361,722.91;  or  a  loss  of  $9.02  to  $1,000. 
From  July  I,  1861,  to  July  I,  1875,  the  total  disbursements  were 
$12,566,892,569.53;  the  total  defalcations  were  $9,905,205.37; 
or  a  loss  of  twenty-six  cents  to  the  $1,000.  In  the  latter  period 
the  disbursements  were  nearly  ten  times  as  great  as  in  the  for 
mer,  and  the  defalcations  one  third  less. 

VOL.  n.  25 


386  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

Is  this  country  so  given  over  to  corruption  as  the  gentleman 
from  Mississippi  suggests?  I  will  answer  by  quoting  two  dis 
tinguished  witnesses.  In  his  able  speech  on  the  Belknap  im 
peachment  trial,  one  of  the  Democratic  managers,  the  gentleman 
from  New  York,1  said  :  — 

"  Senators,  I  am  one  of  those  who  believe  in  progress.  I  believe  that 
this  age  is  the  best  age  which  the  sun  has  ever  shone  upon ;  I  believe 
there  is  more  of  religion,  more  of  humanity,  more  of  love,  more  of 

charity,  in  this  age,  than  in  any  age  that  has  preceded  it There 

is  now  a  higher  and  healthier  sentiment  than  in  any  former  age.  Men 
are  held  to  official  responsibilities  now,  thank  God,  that  they  never  were 
before.  The  time  has  been,  in  the  recollection  of  many  of  you,  when  a 
person  thought  he  had  the  right  to  use  his  official  position  for  his  own  ad 
vantage  ;  but  that  time  has  gone  by,  and  a  good  deal  of  what  we  see  and 
hear,  which  leads  a  great  many  so  mournfully  to  say  that  the  age  is  going 
backward  and  we  are  receding  to  barbarism,  very  much  which  occasions 
the  apparent  increase  of  wrong,  arises  from  the  higher  demands  of  a 
greater  civilization,  from  the  higher  plane  of  an  enlightened  people."  2 

Now  I  quote  a  paragraph  from  the  Centennial  Oration  of 
Rev.  Dr.  Storrs,  a  man  fit  to  be  the  teacher  of  his  race :  - 

"  I  scout  the  thought  that  we  as  a  people  are  worse  than  our  fathers  ! 
John  Adams,  at  the  head  of  the  war  department  in  1776,  wrote  bitter 
laments  of  the  corruption  which  existed  in  even  that  infant  age  of  the 
republic,  and  of  the  spirit  of  venality,  rapacious  and  insatiable,  which 
was  then  the  most  alarming  enemy  of  America.  He  declared  himself 
ashamed  of  the  age  which  he  lived  in.  In  Jefferson's  day  all  Federalists 
expected  the  universal  dominion  of  French  infidelity.  In  Jackson's  day 
all  Whigs  thought  the  country  gone  to  ruin  already,  as  i.f  Mr.  Biddle  had 
had  the  entire  public  hope  locked  up  in  the  vaults  of  his  terminated 
bank.  In  Folk's  day  the  excitements  of  the  Mexican  war  gave  life  and 
germination  to  many  seeds  of  rascality.  There  has  never  been  a  time  — 
not  here  alone,  in  any  country  —  when  the  fierce  light  of  incessant  in 
quiry  blazing  on  men  in  public  life  would  not  have  revealed  forces  of 
evil  like  those  we  have  seen,  or  when  the  condemnation  which  followed 
the  discovery  would  have  been  sharper.  And  it  is  among  my  deepest 
convictions  that,  with  all  which  has  happened  to  debase  and  debauch  it, 
the  nation  at  large  was  never  before  more  mentally  vigorous  or  morally 
sound."  3 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  notwithstanding  all  the  fearful  corrup 
tion  of  his  time  described  by  John  Adams,  our  fathers  never 

1  Mr.  Lord.  °  Trial  of  W.  W.  Belknap,  pp.  340,  341. 

8  New  York  Centennial  Celebration,  (New  York,  A.  D.  F.  Randolph,)  p.  6r. 


AND    THE   GOVERNMENT.  387 

thought  it  necessary  to  call  the  Tories  back  to  take  charge  of 
their  newly  gained  liberties. 

I  will  close  by  calling  your  attention  again  to  the  great  prob 
lem  before  us.  Over  this  vast  horizon  of  interests,  North  and 
South,  above  all  party  prejudices  and  personal  wrong-doing, 
above  our  battle  hosts  and  our  victorious  cause,  above  all  that 
we  hoped  for  and  won,  or  you  hoped  for  and  lost,  is  the  grand, 
onward  movement  of  the  republic,  to  perpetuate  its  glory,  to 
save  liberty  alive,  to  preserve  exact  and  equal  justice  to  all,  to 
protect  and  foster  all  these  priceless  principles,  until  they  shall 
have  crystallized  into  the  form  of  enduring  law,  and  become  in 
wrought  into  the  life  and  the  habits  of  our  people.  And  until 
these  great  results  are  accomplished,  it  is  not  safe  to  take  one 
step  backward.  It  is  still  more  unsafe  to  trust  interests  of  such 
measureless  value  in  the  hands  of  an  organization  whose  mem 
bers  have  never  comprehended  their  epoch,  have  never  been  in 
sympathy  with  its  great  movements,  who  have  resisted  every 
step  of  its  progress,  and  whose  principal  function  has  been  "  to 
lie  in  cold  obstruction  "  across  the  pathway  of  the  nation.  It 
is  most  unsafe  of  all  to  trust  that  organization,  when,  for  the 
first  time  since  the  war,  it  puts  forward  for  the  first  and  second 
place  of  honor  and  command  men  who,  in  our  days  of  greatest 
danger,  esteemed  party  above  country,  and  felt  not  one  throb  of 
patriotic  ardor  for  the  triumph  of  the  imperilled  Union,  but  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end  hated  the  war,  and  hated  those  who 
carried  our  eagles  to  victory.  No,  no,  gentlemen ;  our  en 
lightened  and  patriotic  people  will  not  follow  such  leaders  in 
their  rearward  march.  Their  myriad  faces  are  turned  the  other 
way;  and  along  their  serried  lines  still  rings  the  cheering  cry, 
"  Forward,  till  our  great  work  is  fully  and  worthily  done !  " 


JOHN   WINTHROP   AND   SAMUEL   ADAMS. 

REMARKS  MADE  IN  THE   HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 
DECEMBER  19,  1876. 


MR.  GARFIELD  made  these  remarks,  the  House  having  under  consid 
eration  the  following  resolution  :  — 

"!N  THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 
December  19,  1876. 

"  Resolved  by  the  Senate,  (the  House  of  Representatives  concurring^) 
i .  That  the  statues  of  John  Winthrop  and  Samuel  Adams  are  accepted 
in  the  name  of  the  United  States,  and  that  the  thanks  of  Congress  are 
given  to  the  State  of  Massachusetts  for  these  memorials  of  two  of  her 
eminent  citizens  whose  names  are  indissolubly  associated  with  the  foun 
dation  of  the  Republic. 

"  2.  That  a  copy  of  these  resolutions,  engrossed  upon  parchment 
and  duly  authenticated,  be  transmitted  to  the  Governor  of  the  State  of 
Massachusetts." 


MR.  SPEAKER,  —  I  regret  that  illness  has  made  it  impos 
sible  for  me  to  keep  the  promise  which  I  made  a  few  days 
since  to  offer  some  reflections  appropriate  to  this  very  interest 
ing  occasion.  But  I  cannot  let  the  moment  pass  without  ex 
pressing  my  great  satisfaction  with  the  fitting  and  instructive 
choice  which  the  State  of  Massachusetts  has  made,  and  the 
manner  in  which  her  Representatives  have  discharged  their  duty 
in  presenting  these  beautiful  works  of  art  to  the  Congress  of 
the  nation. 

As  from  time  to  time  our  venerable  and  beautiful  hall  has  been 
peopled  with  statues  of  the  elect  of  the  States,  it  has  seemed  to 
me  that  a  third  house  was  being  organized  within  the  walls  of 
the  Capitol,  —  a  house  whose  members  have  received  their  high 
credentials  at  the  hands  of  history,  and  whose  term  of  office  will 


JOHN  WINTHROP  AND  SAMUEL  ADAMS.      389 

outlast  the  ages.  Year  by  year  we  see  the  circle  of  its  immortal 
membership  enlarging ;  year  by  year  we  see  the  elect  of  their 
country,  .in  eloquent  silence,  taking  their  places  in  this  Amer 
ican  Pantheon,  bringing  within  its  sacred  circle  the  wealth  of 
those  immortal  memories  which  made  their  lives  illustrious; 
and,  year  by  year,  that  august  assembly  is  teaching  a  deeper 
and  grander  lesson  to  all  who  serve  their  brief  hour  in  these 
more  ephemeral  houses  of  Congress.  And  now,  two  places  of 
great  honor  have  just  been  most  nobly  filled. 

I  can  well  understand  that  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  embar 
rassed  by  her  wealth  of  historic  glory,  found  it  difficult  to  make 
the  selection.  And  while  the  distinguished  gentleman  from 
Massachusetts l  was  so  fittingly  honoring  his  State  by  portray 
ing  that  happy  embarrassment,  I  was  reflecting  that  the  sister 
State  of  Virginia  will  encounter,  if  possible,  a  still  greater  diffi 
culty  when  she  comes  to  make  the  selection  of  her  immortals. 
One  name  I  venture  to  hope  she  will  not  select;  a  name  too 
great  for  the  glory  of  any  one  State.  I  trust  she  will  allow  us 
to  claim  Washington  as  belonging  to  all  the  States,  for  all  time. 
If  she  shall  pass  over  the  great  distance  that  separates  Washing 
ton  from  all  others,  I  can  hardly  imagine  how  she  will  make  the 
choice  from  her  crowded  roll.  But  I  have  no  doubt  that  she 
will  be  able  to  select  two  who  will  represent  the  great  phases  of 
her  history  as  happily  and  worthily  as  Massachusetts  is  repre 
sented  in  the  choice  she  has  to-day  announced.  It  is  difficult 
to  imagine  a  happier  combination  of  great  and  beneficent  forces 
than  will  be  presented  by  the  representative  heroes  of  these  two 
great  States. 

Virginia  and  Massachusetts  were  the  two  focal  centres  from 
which  sprang  the  life-forces  of  this  republic.  They  were  in 
many  ways  complements  of  each  other,  each  supplying  what 
the  other  lacked,  and  both  uniting  to  endow  the  republic  with 
its  noblest  and  most  enduring  qualities. 

To-day,  the  House  has  listened  with  the  deepest  interest  to 
the  statement  of  those  elements  of  priceless  value  contributed 
by  the  State  of  Massachusetts.  We  have  been  instructed  by 
the  clear  and  masterly  analysis  of  the  spirit  and  character  of 
that  Puritan  civilization,  so  fully  embodied  in  the  lives  of  Win- 
throp  and  Adams.  I  will  venture  to  add,  that,  notwithstanding 
all  the  neglect  and  contempt  with  which  England  regarded  her 

i  Mr.  Hoar. 


390      JOHN  WINTHROP  AND  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

Puritans  two  hundred  years  ago,  the  tendency  of  thought  in 
modern  England  is  to  do  justice  to  that  great  force  which 
created  the  Commonwealth,  and  finally  made  the  British  Islands 
a  land  of  liberty  and  law.  Even  the  great  historian  Hume  was 
compelled  reluctantly  to  declare  that  "the  precious  spark  of 
liberty  had  been  kindled,  and  was  preserved,  by  the  Puritans 
alone ;  and  it  was  to  this  sect,  whose  principles  appear  so  frivo 
lous,  and  habits  so  ridiculous,  that  the  English  owe  the  whole 
freedom  of  their  constitution."  l 

What  higher  praise  can  posterity  bestow  upon  any  people 
than  to  make  such  a  confession?  Having  done  so  much  to 
save  liberty  alive  in  the  mother-country,  the  Puritans  planted 
upon  the  shores  of  this  new  world  that  remarkable  civilization 
whose  growth  is  the  greatness  and  glory  of  our  republic.  In 
deed,  before  Winthrop  and  his  company  landed  at  Salem,  the 
Pilgrims  were  laying  the  foundations  of  civil  liberty.  While  the 
Mayflower  was  passing  Cape  Cod  and  seeking  an  anchorage,  in 
the  midst  of  the  storm,  her  brave  passengers  sat  down  in  the 
little  cabin  and  drafted  and  signed  a  covenant  which  contains 
the  germ  of  American  liberty.  How  familiar  to  the  American 
habit  of  mind  are  these  affirmations  of  the  Plymouth  Declara 
tion  of  Rights  of  1636,  "that  no  act,  imposition,  law,  or  ordi 
nance  be  made  or  imposed  upon  us  at  present  or  to  come  but 
such  as  shall  be  enacted  by  the  consent  of  the  body  of  freemen 
or  associates,  or  their  representatives  legally  assembled." 

The  New  England  town  was  the  model,  the  primary  cell, 
from  which  our  republic  was  evolved.  The  town  meeting  was 
the  germ  of  all  the  parliamentary  life  and  habits  of  Americans. 
John  Winthrop  brought  with  him  the  more  formal  organization 
of  New  England  society;  and,  in  his  long  and  useful  life,  did 
more  than  perhaps  any  other  to  direct  and  strengthen  its 
growth. 

Nothing,  therefore,  could  be  more  fitting,  than  for  Massachu 
setts  to  place  in  our  memorial  hall  the  statue  of  the  first  of  the 
Puritans,  representing  him  at  the  moment  when  he  was  stepping 
on  shore  from  the  ship  that  brought  him  from  England,  and 
bearing  with  him  the  charter  of  that  first  political  society  which 
laid  the  foundations  of  our  country;  and  that  near  him  should 
stand  that  Puritan  embodiment  of  the  logic  of  the  Revolution, 
Samuel  Adams.  I  am  glad  to  see  this  decisive,  though  tardy, 

1  History  of  England,  (Boston,  1854,)  Vol.  IV.  p.  141. 


JOHN  WINTHROP  AND  SAMUEL  ADAMS.      391 

acknowledgment  of  his  great  and  signal  services  to  America. 
I  doubt  if  any  man  equalled  Samuel  Adams  in  formulating  and 
uttering  the  fierce,  clear,  and  inexorable  logic  of  the  Revolution. 
With  our  present  habits  of  thought,  we  can  hardly  realize  how 
great  were  the  obstacles  to  overcome.  Not  the  least  was  the 
religious  belief  of  the  fathers,  —  that  allegiance  to  rulers  was 
obedience  to  God.  The  thirteenth  chapter  of  Romans  was  to 
many  minds  a  barrier  against  revolution  stronger  than  the  bat 
talions  of  George  III. :  "  Let  every  soul  be  subject  unto  the 
higher  powers.  For  there  is  no  power  but  of  God  :  the  powers 
that  be  are  ordained  of  God.  Whosoever  therefore  resisteth 
the  power,  resisteth  the  ordinance  of  God."  1 

And  it  was  not  until  the  people  of  that  religious  age  were  led 
to  see  that  they  might  obey  God  and  still  establish  liberty,  in 
spite  of  kingly  despotism,  that  they  were  willing  to  engage  in 
war  against  one  who  called  himself  "king  by  the  grace  of  God." 
The  men  who  pointed  out  the  pathway  to  freedom  by  the  light 
of  religion  as  well  as  of  law,  were  the  foremost  promoters  of 
American  independence.  And  of  these,  Adams  was  unques 
tionably  chief. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that,  almost  at  the  same  time  while 
Samuel  Adams  was  writing  the  great  argument  of  liberty  in 
Boston,  Patrick  Henry  was  formulating  the  same  doctrines  in 
Virginia.  It  is  one  of  the  grandest  facts  of  that  grand  time  that 
the  Colonies  were  thus  brought,  by  an  almost  universal  con 
sent,  to  tread  the  same  pathway,  and  reach  the  same  great 
conclusions. 

But  most  remarkable  of  all  is  the  fact,  that,  throughout  all 
that  period,  filled  as  it  was  with  the  revolutionary  spirit,  the 
great  men  who  guided  the  storm  exhibited  the  most  wonderful 
power  of  self-restraint.  If  I  were  to-day  to  state  the  single 
quality  that  appears  to  me  most  admirable  among  the  fathers 
of  the  Revolution,  I  should  say  it  was  this :  that  amidst  all  the 
passions  of  war,  waged  against  a  perfidious  enemy  from  beyond 
the  sea,  aided  by  a  savage  enemy  on  our  own  shores,  our  fathers 
exhibited  so  wonderful  a  restraint,  so  great  a  care  to  observe 
the  forms  of  law,  to  protect  the  rights  of  the  minority,  to  pre 
serve  all  those  great  rights  that  had  come  down  to  them  from 
the  common  law,  so  that  when  they  had  achieved  their  inde 
pendence  they  were  still  a  law-abiding  people. 

1  Romans  xiii.  i,  2. 


392       JOHN  WINTHROP  AND   SAMUEL  ADAMS. 

In  that  fiery  meeting  in  the  Old  South  Church,  after  the 
Boston  Massacre,  when,  as  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts 
has  said,  three  thousand  voices  almost  lifted  the  roof  from  the 
church  in  demanding  the  removal  of  the  regiments,  it  is  noted  by 
the  historian  that  there  was  one  solitary,  sturdy  "  Nay  "  in  the 
vast  assemblage  ;  and  Samuel  Adams  scrupulously  recorded  the 
fact  that  there  was  one  dissentient.  It  would  have  been  a  mortal 
offence  against  his  notions  of  justice  and  good  order,  if  that  one' 
dissentient  had  not  had  his  place  in  the  record.  And  after  the 
regiments  had  been  removed,  and  after  the  demand  had  been 
acceded  to  that  the  soldiers  who  had  fired  upon  citizens  should 
be  delivered  over  to  the  civil  authorities  to  be  dealt  with  accord 
ing  to  law,  Adams  was  the  first  to  insist  and  demand  that  the 
best  legal  talent  in  the  Colony  should  be  put  forward  to  defend 
those  murderers;  and  John  Adams  and  Josiah  Quincy  were 
detailed  for  the  purpose  of  defending  them.  Men  were  detailed 
whose  hearts  and  souls  were  on  fire  with  the  love  of  the  popular 
cause ;  but  the  men  of  Massachusetts  would  have  despised  the 
two  advocates,  if  they  had  not  given  their  whole  strength  to  the 
defence  of  the  soldiers. 

Mr.  Speaker,  this  great  lesson  of  self-restraint  is  taught  in  the 
whole  history  of  the  Revolution ;  and  it  is  this  lesson  that  to 
day,  more  perhaps  than  any  other  that  we  have  seen,  we  ought 
to  take  most  to  heart.  Let  us  seek  liberty  and  peace,  under 
the  law;  and,  following  the  pathway  of  our  fathers,  preserve 
the  great  legacy  they  have  committed  to  our  keeping. 


CONGRESS   AND   PRESIDENTIAL 
ELECTIONS. 

SPEECH   DELIVERED   IN  THE   HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 
JANUARY  16,  1877. 


THE  appointment  of  Presidential  Electors  in  the  State  of  Louisiana, 
in  1876,  and  the  action  of  the  Electors  appointed,  became  the  subject 
of  investigation  by  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  general  facts 
out  of  which  the  investigation  grew  are  stated  in  the  introductions  to 
the  speech  on  "  Counting  the  Electoral  Vote,"  and  to  the  arguments 
made  in  the  Electoral  Commission  on  the  Florida  and  Louisiana  cases, 
and  in  the  speech  and  arguments  themselves.  The  House  sent  to 
Louisiana  a  committee  to  investigate  the  public  charges  of  fraud,  per 
jury,  and  violations  of  law,  in  the  appointment  of  the  Electors ;  and 
also  the  charge  that  the  Electors  had  not  proceeded  in  the  manner 
directed  by  the  laws  of  the  State.  Four  of  the  Electors  upon  whom 
subpoenas  had  been  served  by  the  committee  refused  to  obey  them. 
On  the  1 6th  of  January,  1877,  the  conduct  of  these  Electors  was 
brought  before  the  House  in  a  report  from  the  Committee  on  the  Judi 
ciary,  of  which  this  is  the  conclusion  :  — 

"This  House  having  appointed  a  committee  to  investigate  these 
charges,  your  committee  are  of  opinion  that  J.  Madison  Wells,  Thomas 
C.  Anderson,  G.  Casanave,  and  Lewis  M.  Kenne'r,  in  refusing  to  obey 
the  writ  of  subpoena  duces  tecum  to  appear  and  bring  with  them  certain 
papers  named  in  the  writ,  have  violated  the  privilege  of  this  House. 
They  therefore  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  following  resolution  :  — 

'*  Resolved,  That  the  Speaker  of  this  House  issue  a  warrant  under  his 
hand  and  the  seal  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  directing  the  Ser- 
geant-at-Arms  of  this  House,  either  by  himself  or  his  special  deputy,  to 
arrest  and  bring  to  the  bar  of  the  House  without  delay  J.  Madison 
Wells,  Thomas  C.  Anderson,  G.  Casanave,  and  Lewis  M.  Kenner,  to 
answer  for  a  contempt  of  the  authority  of  this  House,  and  a  breach  of 
privilege  in  refusing  to  produce  to  the  special  committee  of  which  Hon. 
William  R.  Morrison  is  chairman,  now  sitting  in  New  Orleans,  certain 
papers,  in  obedience  to  a  subpoena  duces  tecum  which  was  duly  served 


394  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS. 

upon  them,  and  to  be  dealt  with  as  the  law  under  the  facts  may  re 
quire." 

Pending  this  report  Mr.  Garfield  addressed  the  House.  Some  of  the 
points  here  made  are  more  fully  elaborated  in  his  speech  of  January 
25,  on  "  Counting  the  Electoral  Vote." 


MR.  SPEAKER,  — The  strength  of  the  case  presented  by 
the  committee  is  found  in  the  words  of  the  report  which 
I  am  about  to  read.  After  quoting  the  article  of  the  Constitu 
tion  in  relation  to  the  power  of  the  States  to  appoint  Electors  of 
President  and  Vice-President,  the  committee  say :  "This  clause 
secures  to  the  United  States  the  right  to  require  that  the  per 
sons  claiming  to  act  as  Electors  for  any  State  shall  have  been 
appointed  in  such  manner  as  the  legislature  of  the  State  shall 
have  directed.  The  power  to  ascertain  that  fact  is,  and  must 
be,  in  Congress,  and  if  legislation  is  necessary  to  carry  out  this 
provision  of  the  Constitution,  Congress  alone  has  the  power  to 
legislate  upon  the  subject."  Therefore,  it  is  claimed,  Congress 
has  the  power  to  make  the  inquiries  necessary  as  the  basis  of 
legislation.  I  take  it  that  there  can  be  no  stronger  argument 
made  in  favor  of  the  power  of  the  House  to  pass  the  pro 
posed  resolution  than  the  one  I  have  just  read.  I  acknowledge 
its  strength  in  so  far  as  it  is  sustained  by  the  Constitution.  I 
will  read  the  only  two  clauses  from  which  it  is  claimed  that  Con 
gress  derives  any  power  whatever  to  inquire  into  the  action  of 
the  States  in  appointing  Electors  of  the  President  and  Vice- 
President.  The  second  clause  of  the  first  section  of  Article  II. 
provides  as  follows :  — 

"  Each  State  shall  appoint,  in  such  manner  as  the  legislature  thereof 
may  direct,  a  number  of  Electors  equal  to  the  whole  number  of  Senators 
and  Representatives  to  which  the  State  may  be  entitled  in  the  Congress ; 
but  no  Senator  or  Representative,  or  person  holding  an  office  of  trust  or 
profit  under  the  United  States,  shall  be  appointed  an  Elector." 

And  the  fourth  clause  of  the  same  section  provides :  — 

"  The  Congress  may  determine  the  time  of  choosing  the  Electors,  and 
the  day  on  which  they  shall  give  their  votes ;  which  day  shall  be  the  same 
throughout  the  United  States." 

These  two  clauses  contain  all  the  powers  conferred  upon  the 
States  in  appointing  Electors,  and  contain  also  all  the  limitations 
upon  these  powers.  There  are  five  expressed  or  implied  limita- 


PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  395 

tions  upon  the  power  of  the  States,  and  only  five.  The  limita 
tions  are  either  absolute  in  the  Constitution  itself,  or  they  are 
such  as  authorize  Congress  to  fix  limitations ;  and  if  Congress 
has  any  authority  whatever  to  interfere  with  the  action  of  the 
States  in  the  appointing  of  Electors,  that  authority  must  be 
found  in  some  one  or  more  of  the  five  limitations.  Now,  what 
are  these  five  limitations? 

First.  It  must  be  a  State  that  appoints  the  Elector;  and  as 
Congress  alone  has  authority  to  admit  new  States  into  the  Union, 
if  there  should  be  any  political  organization  not  a  State  that 
cast  a  vote  for  Electors,  and  if  such  pretended  Electors  send  a 
certificate  of  their  vote  for  President  and  Vice-President  to  the 
President  of  the  Senate,  the  Congress  would  undoubtedly  have 
power  to  inquire  into  the  right  of  such  political  organization 
to  participate  in  the  election.  That  is  the  first  limitation. 

Second.  No  State  can  have  more  Electors  than  the  number 
of  Senators  and  Representatives  to  which  that  State  is  entitled 
in  Congress  at  the  time  of  the  election.  If  any  State  presumes 
to  appoint  more,  no  doubt  that  can  be  inquired  into.  The  sur 
plus  cannot  be  counted.  That  is  the  second  limitation. 

Third.  No  person  shall  be  appointed  an  Elector  for  President 
and  Vice-President  who  is  either  a  Senator  or  Representative  in 
Congress,  or  who  holds  any  office  of  trust  or  profit  under  the 
United  States.  Without  doubt  a  violation  of  this  provision  may 
be  inquired  into,  for  it  is  a  distinct  limitation  of  the  authority  of 
the  State.  That  is  the  third  limitation. 

Fourth.  Congress  is  empowered  by  the  Constitution  to  fix 
the  day  when  the  States  shall  choose  Electors ;  and  as  Congress 
has  fixed  a  day,  the  Tuesday  after  the  first  Monday  in  Novem 
ber,  the  State  has  no  right  to  choose  Electors  on  any  other 
day,  except  that  when  a  State,  having  held  an  election  on  that 
day,  has  failed  to  make  a  choice,  its  legislature  may  provide  for 
holding  an  election  on  a  subsequent  day,  in  accordance  with  the 
act  of  Congress  approved  January  23,  1845.  Doubtless  the  in 
quiry  may  be  made  whether  the  election  was  held  on  the  day 
fixed  by  law.  That  is  the  fourth  limitation. 

Fifth.  The  Constitution  provides  that  Congress  may  deter 
mine  the  day  on  which  the  Electors  in  all  the  States  shall  give 
their  votes  for  President  and  Vice-President.  By  the  act  of 
March  I,  1792,  that  fixed  day  is  the  first  Wednesday  of  Decem 
ber,  within  thirty-four  days  of  the  date  of  the  general  election. 


396  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS. 

From  this  it  follows  that  all  the  steps  which  are  necessary  to 
complete  the  appointment  of  the  Electors  must  have  been  taken 
by  the  first  Wednesday  in  December,  when  the  Electors  are  to 
vote  for  President  and  Vice-President.  That  is  the  fifth  limitation. 
For  the  purposes  of  this  debate  I  do  not  follow  the  process  of 
electing  a  President  beyond  the  appointment  of  the  Electors. 

To  sum  up  these  limitations  in  brief.  Congress,  in  obedience 
to  the  Constitution,  fixes  the  day  for  choosing  the  Electors  and 
the  day  when  they  must  vote.  The  Constitution  prescribes  that 
States  only  shall  choose  Electors.  It  prescribes  the  number  of 
Electors  for  each  State,  and  their  qualifications.  These  are  the 
limitations  upon  the  authority  of  the  States  in  the  appointment 
of  Electors  of  the  President,  and  I  defy  any  man  to  find  any 
other  limitation  whatever  upon  their  power.  Every  other  act 
and  fact  relating  to  the  appointment  of  Electors  is  as  absolutely 
and  exclusively  in  the  power  of  the  States  as  is  their  power  to 
elect  their  Governors  or  their  justices  of  the  peace.  Across  the 
line  of  these  limitations  Congress  has  no  more  right  to  interfere 
with  the  States  than  it  has  to  interfere  with  the  election  of  offi 
cers  in  England.  To  speak  more  accurately,  I  should  say  that 
the  power  is  placed  in  the  legislature  of  the  States ;  for  if  the 
Constitution  of  any  State  were  silent  upon  the  subject,  its  legisla 
ture  is  none  the  less  armed  with  plenary  authority  conferred  upon 
it  directly  by  the  national  Constitution.  Now  apply  these  con 
siderations  to  the  recent  appointment  of  Electors  by  Louisiana. 

It  is  not  denied  that  Louisiana  is  recognized  by  every  de 
partment  of  the  national  government  as  one  of  the  States  within 
the  Union.  It  is  not  denied  that,  on  the  day  fixed  by  law,  an 
election  for  Electors  of  President  and  Vice-President  was  held  in 
that  State.  It  is  not  denied  that,  within  the  time  prescribed  by 
the  national  statute,  the  officers  empowered  by  the  legislature 
of  Louisiana  to  canvass,  compile,  and  make  return  of  the  votes 
cast  in  that  State,  did  declare  that  six  persons,  the  number  re 
quired  by  the  Constitution,  had  received  a  majority  of  the  votes 
for  Electors  at  said  election,  and  were  duly  elected.  And  it  is 
not  alleged  that  any  of  the  persons  so  chosen  were  ineligible 
to  such  appointment  under  the  Constitution.  It  is  not  denied 
that  the  Electors  so  appointed  met  on  the  day  fixed  by  law,  and 
cast  their  votes  for  President  and  Vice-President. 

If  any  of  these  facts  is  denied,  I  have  not  heard  of  it.  But 
the  validity  of  the  appointment  of  these  Electors  is  vehemently 


, 


PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  397 

and  passionately  assailed.  It  is  not  a  little  remarkable  that, 
though  their  appointment  was  proclaimed  on  the  6th  of  Decem 
ber  last,  no  statement  has  yet  been  made,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
of  the  authority  on  which  Congress,  or  either  house  of  Congress, 
claims  the  right  to  challenge  the  validity  of  the  appointment. 
The  intimation  that  somebody  may  forbid  the  counting  of  the 
votes  which  these  Electors  cast  for  President  and  Vice-President 
is  a  topic  quite  apart  from  the  validity  of  their  appointment. 
It  is  incumbent  upon  those  who  question  its  validity  to  show 
their  authority  for  so  doing.  They  cannot  find  it  in  the  Consti 
tution  or  laws  of  the  United  States,  unless  their  objection  be 
based  upon  one  or  more  of  the  five  grounds  I  have  mentioned. 
If  this  House  bases  its  right  to  inquire  into  the  election  in 
Louisiana  upon  any  of  these  limitations,  their  inquiry  might 
have  some  ground  of  authority;  but  if  we  presume  to  inquire 
as  to  any  other  point,  we  are  absolutely  violating  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States.  The  manner  of  appointment  within 
these  five  limitations  is  absolutely  and  exclusively  in  the  control 
of  the  State  legislature.  The  words  of  the  Constitution  declare 
it.  The  laws  of  Congress  acknowledge  it,  and  the  ablest  and 
earliest  expounders  of  the  Constitution  confirm  it.  Listen  to , 
the  words  of  Charles  C.  Pinckney,  one  of  the  foremost  members 
of  the  Convention  that  framed  the  Constitution,  and  long  a  con 
spicuous  member  of  the  Senate.  Seventy-seven  years  ago, 
while  discussing  the  very  clause  of  the  Constitution  we  are  now 
considering,  he  said :  — 

"  Knowing  that  it  was  the  intention  of  the  Constitution  to  make  the 
President  completely  independent  of  the  Federal  legislature,  I  well  re 
member  it  was  the  object,  as  it  is  at  present  not  only  the  spirit,  but  the 
letter,  of  that  instrument  to  give  to  Congress  no  interference  in  or  con 
trol  over  the  election  of  a  President This  right  of  determining 

on  the  manner  in  which  the  Electors  shall  vote,  the  inquiry  into  the  qual 
ifications,  and  the  guards  necessary  to  prevent  disqualified  or  improper 
men  voting,  and  to  insure  the  votes  being  legally  given,  vests,  and  is 
exclusively  vested,  in  the  State  legislatures.  If  it  is  necessary  to  have 
guards  against  improper  elections  of  Electors,  and  to  institute  tribunals  to 
inquire  into  their  qualifications,  with  the  State  legislatures,  and  with  them 
alone,  rests  the  power  to  institute  them,  and  they  must  exercise  it."  1 

Here  is  a  plain  and  authoritative  declaration  that  Congress 
has  no  authority  whatever  to  inquire  into  the  vote  of  a  State  for 

1  Annals  of  Congress,  March  28,  1800,  p.  130. 


398  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS. 

Electors  of  the  President,  —  not  even  to  provide  against  fraud 
ulent  and  improper  elections.  This  speech  of  Pinckney  was 
made  upon  a  bill  then  pending  in  Congress,  to  prescribe  a 
mode  of  deciding  disputed  elections  of  President  and  Vice- 
President.  The  bill,  which  in  different  forms  passed  both 
houses,  but  unfortunately  failed  to  become  a  law,  contained, 
in  all  the  various  forms  it  assumed,  one  proviso  which  is  most 
significant.  I  will  read  it,  as  found  in  the  eighth  section. 
"  Provided  always,  That  no  petition  or  exception  shall  be 
granted,  allowed,  or  considered  by  the  sitting  committee  which 
has  for  its  object  to  dispute  or  draw  into  question  the  number 
of  votes  given  for  an  Elector  in  any  of  the  States,  or  the  fact 
whether  an  Elector  was  chosen  by  a  majority  of  votes  in  his 
State  or  district."  From  this  it  appears  that  the  great  states 
men  who  lived  in  the  early  days  of  the  republic,  and  acted  un 
der  the  fresh  and  immediate  inspirations  of  the  Constitution, 
disclaimed  any  authority  on  the  part  of  Congress  even  to  listen 
to  a  petition  which  had  for  its  object  to  dispute  or  draw  into 
question  the  votes  of  a  State  for  Electors.  What  more  weighty 
or  conclusive  authority  against  the  position  assumed  by  our 
Judiciary  Committee  to-day  can  be  conceived? 

Now  let  us  follow  this  line  of  thought  a  little  further.  It  is 
none  of  our  business  how  a  State  exercises  this  power  to  ap 
point  Electors,  so  long  as  it  keeps  within  the  five  limitations  I 
have  named.  The  legislature  of  a  State  may  itself  choose  the 
Electors,  as  was  frequently  done  in  the  early  days  of  the  repub 
lic.  A  State  may  authorize  its  Governor  or  its  courts  to  ap 
point  the  Electors ;  it  may  allow  a  sheriff  to  appoint  them. 
In  1796,  the  State  of  Vermont  had  no  word  in  her  Constitution 
or  her  laws  to  regulate  the  appointment  of  Electors,  and  no 
election  of  Electors  was  held  by  the  people.  But  when  the  day 
for  appointing  Electors  came,  the  legislature  of  Vermont,  with 
out  any  State  law,  without  any  constitutional  provision  on  the 
subject,  elected  the  Electors,  whose  election  was  valid,  and 
whose  votes  were  counted  without  question.  Why?  Because 
that  legislature  drew  its  authority  directly  from  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States,  and  its  action  was  final  and  con 
clusive. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  never  believed  in  the  Democratic  theory 
of  State  sovereignty;  I  do  not  believe  in  it  to-day;  but  if  there 
be  one  power  more  sovereign  than  another,  if  there  be  differ- 


PRESIDENTIAL   ELECTIONS.  399 

ences  between  supreme  acts,  then  I  would  say  that  the  su- 
premest  act  that  a  State  can  perform  is  the  act  of  casting  its 
vote  for  the  President  of  the  United  States ;  and  if  that  be  done 
within  the  five  limitations,  there  is  not  a  prince,  a  potentate,  a 
power,  a  legislature,  a  Congress,  much  less  a  committee  of 
Congress,  that  can  forbid  or  question  such  act.  The  pending 
resolution  is  based  upon  an  assumption  of  power  to  break  over 
the  limitations,  to  penetrate  the  very  heart  of  State  indepen 
dence,  by  arresting  its  officers,  seizing  its  archives,  and  inquiring 
what  votes  were  cast,  and  whether  they  were  honestly  cast. 

Now  I  admit  that  an  impure  ballot-box  is  a  fearful  evil ;  a 
fraudulent  election  and  a  false  count  are  sins  that  cry  to  Heaven  ; 
but  anarchy  is  a  greater  evil,  for  it  includes  all  others.  A  viola 
tion  of  the  fundamental  law  is  the  open  door  by  which  anarchy 
enters ;  and  I  warn  this  House  that,  if  they  pass  this  resolu 
tion,  they  are  about  to  open  a  new  and  wide  door,  and  beckon 
the  fiend  to  enter.  I  wish  to  remind  the  House  that  never  yet 
since  we  have  had  a  government  has  any  Congress  passed  a 
law,  or  even  proposed  a  law,  going  behind  the  declared  major 
ity  of  the  votes  of  a  State  for  Electors,  and  inquiring  how  that 
majority  was  obtained.  Such  an  inquiry  as  that  never  has  been 
attempted ;  but  not  because  there  were  no  frauds.  What  care 
ful  student  of  American  history  does  not  know  that,  in  the  year 
1844,  Henry  Clay  was  robbed  of  the  electoral  vote  of  this  same 
State  of  Louisiana,  and  that,  by  the  most  shameless  and  out 
rageous  fraud  and  violence,  it  was  delivered  over  to  James  K. 
Polk?  I  refer,  of  course,  to  the  Plaquemines  frauds.  To  show 
that  I  do  not  speak  at  random,  I  refer  gentlemen  to  Senate 
Document  No.  173  of  the  Twenty-eighth  Congress,  when  the 
Senate  Committee  on  the  Judiciary  embodied  in  their  report 
—  made,  however,  upon  another  subject  —  a  long  and  exhaust 
ive  report  of  the  legislature  of  Louisiana,  with  all  the  testimony, 
in  which  it  appeared  that,  under  the  leadership  of  John  Slidell, 
a  steamboat  load  of  men,  who  had  voted  in  New  Orleans  on 
the  4th  of  November,  went  to  Plaquemines,  by  violence  and 
intimidation  drove  Whig  voters  from  the  polls,  and  in  shameless 
violation  of  the  law,  and  in  collusion  with  the  election  officers 
of  that  place,  voted  by  hundreds,  many  of  them  voting  many 
times.  They  put  into  that  ballot-box  more  votes  than  there 
were  white  male  inhabitants  within  the  precinct ;  they  put  into 
it  three  times  as  many  votes  as  were  put  into  it  at  the  Presiden- 


400  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS. 

tial  election  four  years  before,  and  twice  as  many  as  were  put 
into  it  four  years  afterward,  when  General  Taylor,  the  pride  of 
Louisiana,  was  the  Whig  candidate  for  President.  The  judges 
of  the  election  "counted  all  the  ballots  actually  cast,"  as  some 
gentlemen  desire  the  Louisiana  Returning  Board  to  do  now. 
And  the  contents  of  that  box  alone  changed  the  result  in  Lou 
isiana,  and  gave  its  electoral  vote  to  Mr.  Polk.  But  there  was 
not  a  statesman  in  the  House  or  in  the  Senate  of  that  day  who 
claimed  any  right  on  the  part  of  Congress  to  go  behind  the 
declared  majority  of  that  State,  and  to  unearth  and  rectify  even 
that  outrageous  and  open  fraud.  Sad  and  disgraceful  as  that 
proceeding  was,  the  vote  of  Louisiana  was  counted  in  this  Cap 
itol  for  James  K.  Polk,  because  there  was  no  authority  here  to 
question  it. 

Even  on  the  five  grounds  I  have  mentioned,  Congress  has 
always  been  reluctant  to  question  the  action  of  a  State.  In  a  few 
instances  the  question  has  been  raised  whether  a  political  or 
ganization  which  has  thrown  an  electoral  vote  was  really  a  State 
within  the  Union;  but  generally  the  benefit  of  the  doubt  has 
been  given  in  favor  of  counting  the  votes.  In  many  cases  Elec 
tors  have  been  appointed  who  were  disqualified  by  the  Constitu 
tion  ;  but  no  vote  of  an  Elector  has  ever  been  rejected  on  that 
ground.  In  one  instance,  the  Electors  of  a  State  did  not  cast 
their  votes  on  the  day  fixed  by  law ;  but  their  votes  were  never 
theless  counted.  In  no  instance  has  a  Congress  even  proposed 
to  inquire  into  the  election  by  which  the  Electors  were  ap 
pointed.  It  seems  to  be  reserved  for  this  House,  with  its  large 
majority  of  professed  believers  in  State  sovereignty,  to  go  a 
thousand  bowshots  beyond  any  of  its  predecessors,  and  assume 
the  power  to  revise  the  elections  in  any  State  it  pleases. 

Now  I  will  go  a  step  further,  and  affirm,  although  I  regret 
the  fact,  that  under  the  national  Constitution  and  laws  Congress 
has  no  authority  to  contest  an  election  of  Electors  for  President, 
except  upon  the  five  grounds  I  have  named;  and  if  it  had  the 
authority,  the  Constitution  and  laws  have  made  it  physically 
impossible  to  inaugurate  and  adjudicate  such  a  contest.  Follow 
me  for  a  moment,  and  I  believe  members  of  the  House  will 
agree  with  me.  Our  fathers  intended  that  the  election  of  a 
President  should  be  a  certain  and  summary  proceeding.  They 
required  the  vote  to  be  taken  everywhere  on  the  same  day. 
Then  they  required  that  within  thirty-four  days  after  the  vote  was 


PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  401 

cast  the  Electors  themselves  should  meet  and  vote  for  President 
and  Vice-President.  Why  did  they  limit  it  to  thirty-four  days? 
If  you  will  read  the  proceedings  of  the  convention  that  framed 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  of  the  early  Con 
gresses,  you  will  find  that  our  fathers  determined  to  make  the 
time  just  as  short  as  would  suffice  to  receive  the  returns  in  the 
different  States.  And  the  fact  is,  that  in  many  of  the  large 
States,  even  with  our  increased  facilities  for  communication,  the 
time  is  so  short  that  the  official  returns  are  not  complete  until 
the  very  night  before  the  Presidential  Electors  must  meet. 
Therefore  there  is  no  time,  it  is  physically  impossible,  to  insti 
tute  and  conclude  a  contest  after  the  appointment  of  Electors 
and  before  the  day  when  they  must  meet  and  cast  their  votes. 
I  do  not  know  of  a  single  State  in  the  Union  that  has  provided 
for  such  a  contest.  The  action  of  their  returning  boards  in 
announcing  the  majority  of  votes  has  always  been  final. 

Nor  is  a  contest  possible  after  the  electoral  college  has  voted. 
The  Electors  meet  on  the  first  Wednesday  of  December,  vote 
by  ballot  for  President  and  Vice-President,  and  at  once  sign  and 
seal  up  the  certificate  of  their  votes,  and  send  the  packages 
to  the  President  of  the  Senate.  For  two  months  and  a  half  no 
human  being  has  any  right  to  break  the  seals.  During  that  time 
no  contest  can  be  instituted  upon  their  vote,  because  the  only 
official  evidence  of  their  action  is  locked  under  the  silence  of 
their  seals  by  the  authority  of  the  Constitution  itself.  If  a 
contest  in  regard  to  the  appointment  of  Electors  cannot  be 
made  between  the  day  of  the  election  and  the  meeting  of  the 
electoral  college,  nor  between  the  day  of  the  meeting  of  the 
college  and  the  opening  of  the  certificates,  can  it  be  done  after 
the  seals  are  broken?  Manifestly  not,  for  two  unanswerable 
reasons.  Here  also  the  language  of  the  Constitution  and  laws 
of  the  United  States  is  peremptory.  The  law  requires  that  on 
one  day  of  all  the  days  of  the  year  both  houses  of  Congress 
shall  be  in  session.  That  day  is  the  second  Wednesday  of  Feb 
ruary.  One  day  they  are  to  be  in  session  to  witness  the  open 
ing  of  the  certificates.  Then  comes  the  imperial  command  of 
the  Constitution :  "  The  President  of  the  Senate  shall  .... 
open  all  the  certificates,  and  the  votes  shall  then  be  counted." 
"  Then  "  /  "  THEN  "  !  Here  is  no  time  for  a  contest  in  regard 
to  the  appointment  of  Electors  !  If  the  certificates  disclose  the 
fact  that  there  has  been  no  choice,  the  House  shall  immedi- 

VOL.    II.  26 


402  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS. 

ately  choose  the  President.  In  less  than  three  weeks  from  the 
day  the  seals  are  broken  the  Congress  ceases  to  exist.  The 
whole  proceeding  was  intended  to  be  brief,  summary,  decisive. 
Read  the  record  from  beginning  to  end,  and  there  will  be  found 
no  time  for  a  contest,  and  no  authority  for  one  if  there  were 
time. 

Review  the  long  line  of  illustrious  statesmen,  and  find,  if  you 
can,  even  one  who  before  the  present  year  ever  claimed  that 
Congress  had  the  power  to  go  beyond  these  five  limitations  and 
question  the  Presidential  vote  of  a  State.  If  we  may  question 
the  vote  in  one  State,  we  may  question  it  in  all.  If  we  may 
examine  one  returning  board,  we  may  examine  all  the  officers 
of  elections  in  all  the  States.  We  may  open  every  ballot-box 
and  revise  and  count  the  votes  of  seven  million  voters.  Such  a 
view  of  the  Constitution  defeats  its  own  provisions,  and  renders 
the  election  of  a  President  by  the  States  absolutely  impossible ; 
because  it  would  always  lie  in  the  power  of  one  house  or  the 
other,  by  the  brute  force  of  numbers  or  the  power  of  party 
spirit,  to  object,  and  examine,  and  inquire,  until  the  arrival  of 
the  day  when  Congress  would  expire  by  limitation. 

Mr.  Speaker,  we  are  dealing  with  mighty  issues.  Gentlemen 
are  proposing  to  have  the  House  seize,  and  bring  to  its  bar  as 
prisoners,  four  officers  of  a  State,  who  are  not  charged  with 
having  violated  any  clause  of  our  Constitution ;  who  are  not 
charged  with  having  violated  any  law  of  the  United  States  ;  who 
are  not  charged  with  having  failed  in  any  point  of  their  duty  as 
defined  in  our  Constitution  or  laws.  The  House  proposes  to 
go  beyond  all  this,  —  to  invade  the  clear,  unquestioned  right  of 
a  State,  —  to  drag  its  officers  fourteen  hundred  miles  away  from 
their  capital,  and  bring  with  them  a  portion  of  the  public  ar 
chives  of  their  State,  and  surrender  them  to  us.  These  officers 
have  tendered  to  our  committee  the  free  use  of  their  records 
to  be  copied ;  but  they  stand  on  their  rights  as  the  lawful  custo 
dians  of  the  records  of  their  State,  —  and  for  that  you  propose 
to  punish  them.  If  the  House  can  make  this  demand,  we  can 
bring  to  our  bar  every  officer  of  every  State  of  the  Union ;  and 
can  make  them  bring  all  the  archives  of  all  the  States.  We  can 
thus  cause  a  State  to  die  by  inanition,  by  holding  all  its  officers 
prisoners  at  our  bar,  and  turning  over  all  its  archives  to  our 
committees. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  if  the  defence  I  am  making  be  the  defence 


PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  403 

of  State  rights,  then  I  am  for  State  rights  within  those  limits ;  I 
believe  I  have  always  been  to  that  extent  at  least  a  champion  of 
the  rights  of  the  States.  How  we  swing  like  a  pendulum  !  Six 
teen  years  ago,  in  the  name  of  State  sovereignty,  it  was  proposed 
by  a  great  party,  in  this  hall,  to  break  the  Union  in  pieces ;  six 
teen  years  ago,  in  the  name  of  State  sovereignty,  it  was  declared 
that  a  certain  portion  of  our  people  would  never  submit  to  an 
election  that  declared  Abraham  Lincoln  President;  and  now,  in 
defiance  of  all  State  rights,  it  is  proposed  that  these  great  com 
munities  —  these  thirty-eight  sisters  that  you  call  sovereign, 
though  I  do  not  —  shall  be  chained  to  the  wheels  of  this  Con 
gressional  chariot,  and  dragged  in  fetters  to  the  national  Capitol 
as  vassals  of  the  imperial  will  of — what?  —  a  party  in  the  House 
of  Representatives ;  not  the  nation,  not  the  Congress,  not  the 
House,  but  a  partisan  majority  of  the  House,  bent  upon  the 
accomplishment  of  a  party  purpose.  Now,  gentlemen,  in  the 
name  of  our  country,  as  you  revere  the  glories  of  its  great 
past,  and  would  preserve  all  that  is  worthiest  in  the  possibilities 
of  its  great  future,  I  beg.  you  to  pause  before  you  commit  this 
fatal  assault  upon  whatever  there  may  be  of  sovereignty  in  the 
thirty-eight  States  of  the  Union. 


THE  proceedings  of  the  House  Committee  of  Investigation  in  Louisi 
ana  brought  into  prominence  the  power  of  the  House  over  private  tele 
graphic  despatches,  copies  of  which  were  in  the  custody  of  the  telegraph 
companies.  On  the  2oth  of  December,  1876,  Mr.  Garfield  expressed 
these  views  touching  the  general  question. 

MR.  SPEAKER,  —  If  we  take  the  position  suggested  by  the 
gentleman  from  Kentucky,1  that  there  is  no  difference  between 
telegraphic  communications  and  oral  communications  so  far  as 
this  privilege  is  concerned,  we  need  take  only  one  other  step 
to  destroy  the  last  possible  protection  that  the  American  people 
enjoy  against  the  invasion  of  their  privacy  by  their  servants,  the 
House  of  Representatives.  If  we  now  declare  that  the  tele 
graph  is  to  be  put  down  on  the  level  of  mere  oral  communica 
tion, —  that  one  of  the  greatest  corporations  of  the  country  is 
to  turn  common  informer  against  all  private  citizens,  —  the  next 

1  Mr.  Knott. 


404  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS. 

and  last  step  will  be  to  declare  that  the  post-office  is  to  be  put 
on  the  plane  of  the  telegraph.  Here  is  a  great  institution,  un 
known  to  the  old  law-writers,  which  has  grown  up  within  the 
last  thirty-five  years,  and  which  is  probably  to-day,  next  to  the 
post-office,  the  custodian  of  more  secrets  in  relation  to  public 
and  private  affairs  than  any  other  institution  on  earth.  Every 
day  hundreds  of  thousands  of  our  fellow-citizens  intrust  their 
most  sacredly  private  affairs  to  the  telegraph  companies,  under 
the  seal  of  their  confidence.  It  is  now  proposed  that  all  the 
transactions  conducted  through  this  great  instrumentality  shall 
be  put  down  to  the  level  of  open  oral  communications.  All  that 
public  or  private  malice  needs  is,  by  the  process  of  the  House, 
to  seize  the  telegraph  operator  at  any  office,  require  him  to  bring 
in  his  bundle  of  despatches,  and  this  inquisitorial  body  can  fish 
out  from  among  them  whatever  evidence  may  happen  to  suit  its 
passion  or  its  caprice.  There  never  was  an  Anglo-Saxon  law,  in 
any  country  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  world,  that  would  permit  so 
great  an  invasion  of  private  rights. 

Besides  destroying  the  telegraph  as  a  great  instrument  of  com 
merce  and  business  intercourse,  you  break  down,  in  the  minds 
of  our  people,  that  security  under  the  law  which  they  have  en 
joyed  for  so  many  generations.  I  say  to  gentlemen  frankly  that 
you  and  I  have  never  yet  seen  a  Congressional  investigation 
the  objects  of  which  were  sufficiently  important  to  warrant  so 
great  a  change  in  the  laws  of  the  country.  It  were  better  that 
every  thief  should  go  unwhipped  of  justice,  than  that  the  old 
guaranties  of  the  law  should  be  destroyed  in  order  to  secure  his 
punishment. 

In  1870  this  question  came  up  in  the  committee  of  which  I 
was  chairman,  the  Committee  on  Banking  and  Currency,  before 
which  a  very  important  investigation  was  going  forward,  and 
there  are  some  gentlemen  here  who  sat  with  me  upon  that 
committee.  We  were  called  to  investigate  the  causes  which  led 
to  the  gold  panic  on  what  was  known  as  Black  Friday.  After  a 
large  amount  of  testimony  had  been  taken,  it  was  found  that  at 
a  given  moment  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  under  direction 
of  the  President,  wrote  a  despatch  ordering  the  sale  of  gold  in 
New  York  City ;  and  within  a  few  minutes  thereafter  the  gold 
market  had  broken  twenty  or  thirty  per  cent.  But  the  break 
came  about  ten  minutes  before  the  official  despatch  reached 
New  York  City  ;  and  it  was  strongly  probable  that  some 


PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS.  405 

trusted  officer  of  the  government  had  been  faithless,  and  had 
privately  informed  parties  in  New  York  that  the  order  was 
coming.  It  was  vitally  important  to  the  honor  and  good  faith 
of  the  nation,  that  it  should  be  known  whether  that  supposition 
was  true  or  not.  We  called  the  telegraph  managers  before  us 
to  inquire  how  far  they  felt  at  liberty  to  disclose  to  us  what 
had  passed  over  their  wires,  between  Washington  and  New 
York,  within  the  brief  period  of  half  an  hour;  and  by  the  unani 
mous  agreement  of  the  committee,  Democrats  and  Republicans 
alike,  we  narrowed  the  question  down  in  this  way.  First,  that 
within  a  period  of  twenty  minutes  of  time  we  would  make  our 
inquiry;  second,  that  it  should  relate  only  to  telegrams  bearing 
upon  the  government  order  to  sell  gold ;  and,  third,  that  if  the 
telegrams  disclosed  under  these  conditions  were  any  of  them 
clearly  private,  they  should  be  returned  to  the  telegraph  com 
pany,  and  not  one  of  them  published.  That  was  as  far  as  I 
thought  we  could  go,  and  I  think  it  was  a  wise  precedent. 

We  shall  make  a  most  serious  mistake  if  we  break  over  the 
well- settled  rules  established  for  the  protection  of  the  business 
correspondence  of  citizens.  I  do  not  know  that  the  question 
now  proposed  will  harm  any  man  of  either  party ;  but  we  ought 
to  remember  that  the  safeguards  of  liberty  are  only  in  danger 
in  times  of  public  passion,  and  in  such  times  it  becomes  all 
thoughtful  men  to  take  special  heed  to  their  steps,  and  make  no 
precedents  which  may  come  back  in  calmer  times  to  plague  the 
inventors. 


COUNTING    THE    ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

SPEECH   DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 

JANUARY  25,  1877. 


THE  Presidential  election  of  1876  was  strenuously  contested  by  the 
two  great  political  parties  at  every  point.  There  were  369  Electors  to 
be  chosen.  When  November  7,  the  day  for  appointing  Electors  in  the 
States,  had  passed,  this  was  the  situation  that  was  presented  to  the 
country.  Concerning  the  election  of  184  Democratic  and  163  Repub 
lican  Electors  there  was  no  question.  But  the  remaining  22  were  dis 
puted.  The  Democrats  claimed  them,  and  the  Republicans  claimed 
them.  If  these  votes  were  counted  for  Mr.  Tilden,  the  Democratic 
candidate,  he  would  have  a  majority  of  21  ;  if  for  Mr.  Hayes,  he  would 
have  a  majority  of  one.  The  Electors  whose  elections  were  in  doubt 
were  those  of  Florida,  Louisiana,  South  Carolina,  and  Oregon.  The 
questions  of  fact  and  of  law  involved  in  the  controversy  need  not  be 
here  stated  further  than  to  say  that  there  were  charges  of  intimidation 
of  voters  at  the  polls,  of  corruption  and  fraud  on  the  part  of  State 
canvassing  and  returning  officers,  and  of  disability,  in  two  or  three 
cases,  to  exercise  the  duties  of  the  office  on  the  part  of  the  Electors 
alleged  to  be  appointed.  There  were  double  electoral  colleges  in  the 
four  States,  and  plural  sets  of  votes  for  President  and  Vice-President 
were  transmitted  to  the  seat  of  government,  directed  to  the  President  of 
the  Senate.  Hence  arose  the  question,  Who  shall  canvass  the  returns 
sent  to  Washington,  and  decide  what  votes  shall  be  counted?  This 
question  involved  this  further  one,  Who  shall  decide,  in  the  case  of  the 
disputed  States,  which  were  the  legal  electoral  colleges  and  the  legal 
electoral  votes?  Some  said  the  power  to  decide  these  questions  was 
lodged  in  the  President  of  the  Senate ;  others,  that  it  was  lodged  in  the 
two  houses  of  Congress.  The  interpretation  of  the  Constitution,  and 
the  practice  under  the  Constitution,  were  thus  both  involved  in  heated 
and  passionate  contention.  In  view  of  this  state  of  affairs,  a  joint  com 
mittee  of  the  two  houses  of  Congress  was  raised  "  to  prepare  and  report 
without  delay  such  a  measure,  either  legislative  or  constitutional,  as  may, 


COUNTING    THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE.  407 

in  their  judgment,  be  best  calculated  to  accomplish  the  desired  end." 
January  18,  1877,  this  committee,  consisting  of  six  Senators  and  seven 
Representatives,  submitted  a  report,  joint  and  several,  accompanied  by 
a  bill,  which  passed  both  houses,  and  became  a  law,  January  29.  This 
is  the  title  finally  agreed  upon :  "  An  Act  to  provide  for  and  regulate 
the  Counting  of  Votes  for  President  and  Vice- President,  and  the  De 
cision  of  Questions  arising  thereon,  for  the  Term  commencing  March  4, 
A.  D.  1877." 

The  bill  provided  that,  when  there  was  only  one  return  from  a  State, 
the  votes  therein  contained  should  be  counted,  unless  rejected  by  an 
affirmative  vote  of  the  two  houses  (voting  separately) .  It  provided,  also, 
"  That  if  more  than  one  return  or  paper  purporting  to  be  a  return  from 
a  State  shall  have  been  received  by  the  President  of  the  Senate,  pur 
porting  to  be  the  certificates  of  electoral  votes  given,  at  the  last  preceding 
election  for  President  and  Vice-President  in  such  State,  (unless  they  shall 
be  duplicates  of  the  same  return,)  all  such  returns  and  papers  shall  be 
opened  by  him  in  the  presence  of  the  two  houses  when  met  as  aforesaid, 
and  read  by  the  tellers,  and  all  such  returns  and  papers  shall  thereupon 
be  submitted  to  the  judgment  and  decision,  as  to  which  is  the  true  and 
lawful  electoral  vote  of  such  State,  of  a  commission,"  consisting  of  five 
justices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  four  of  whom  were  designated  in  the  act 
itself,  and  the  fifth  of  whom  was  to  be  chosen  by  the  four;  of  five 
Senators,  who  were  to  be  chosen  by  the  Senate  by  a  viva  voce  vote  ; 
and  five  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  chosen  in  the 
same  manner.  The  duties  of  this  Commission  were  thus  defined  in 
Section  2  :  — 

"  All  the  certificates  and  papers  purporting  to  be  certificates  of  the 
electoral  votes  of  each  State  shall  be  opened  [that  is,  by  the  President  of 
the  Senate,  in  presence  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives]  in 
the  alphabetical  order  of  the  States,  as  provided  in  Section  i  of  this  act ; 
and  when  there  shall  be  more  than  one  such  certificate  or  paper,  as  the 
certificates  and  papers  from  such  State  shall  so  be  opened,  (excepting 
duplicates  of  the  same  return,)  they  shall  be  read  by  the  tellers,  and 
thereupon  the  President  of  the  Senate  shall  call  for  objections,  if  any. 
Every  objection  shall  be  made  in  writing,  and  shall  state  clearly  and 
concisely,  and  without  argument,  the  ground  thereof,  and  shall  be  signed 
by  at  least  one  Senator  and  one  member  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  before  the  same  shall  be  received.  When  all  such  objections  so 
made  to  any  certificate,  vote,  or  paper  from  a  State  shall  have  been  re 
ceived  and  read,  all  such  certificates,  votes,  and  papers  so  objected  to, 
and  all  papers  accompanying  the  same,  together  with  such  objections, 
shall  be  forthwith  submitted  to  said  Commission,  which  shall  proceed  to 
consider  the  same,  with  the  same  powers,  if  any,  now  possessed  for  that 
purpose  by  the  two  houses,  acting  separately  or  together,  and,  by  a  ma- 


408  COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

jority  of  votes,  decide  whether  any  and  what  votes  from  such  State  are 
the  votes  provided  for  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  how 
many  and  what  persons  were  duly  appointed  Electors  in  such  State,  and 
may  therein  take  into  view  such  petitions,  depositions,  and  other  papers, 
if  any,  as  shall,  by  the  Constitution  and  now  existing  law,  be  competent 
and  pertinent  in  such  consideration ;  which  decision  shall  be  made  in 
writing,  stating  briefly  the  ground  thereof,  and  signed  by  the  members 
of  said  Commission  agreeing  therein ;  whereupon  the  two  houses  shall 
again  meet,  and  such  decision  shall  be  read  and  entered  in  the  journal 
of  each  house,  and  the  counting  of  the  votes  shall  proceed  in  conformity 
therewith,  unless,  upon  objection  made  thereto  in  writing  by  at  least  five 
Senators  and  five  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  the  two 
houses  shall  separately  concur  in  ordering  otherwise  ;  in  which  case  such 
concurrent  order  shall  govern.  No  votes  or  papers  from  any  other  State 
shall  be  acted  upon  until  the  objections  previously  made  to  the  votes  or 
papers  from  any  State  shall  have  been  finally  disposed  of." 

Section  6  provided,  "  That  nothing  in  this  act  shall  be  held  to  impair 
or  affect  any  right  now  existing  under  the  Constitution  and  laws  to  ques 
tion,  by  proceeding  in  the  judicial  courts  of  the  United  States,  the  right 
or  title  of  the  person  who  shall  be  declared  elected,  or  who  shall  claim 
to  be  President  or  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  if  any  such  right 
exists." 

While  this  bill  was  pending  in  the  House,  it  having  already  passed  the 
Senate,  Mr.  Garfield  delivered  the  following  speech. 


"A  people  who  can  understand  and  act  upon  the  counsels  which  God  has  given  it  in  the 
past  events  of  its  history,  is  safe  in  the  most  dangerous  crisis  of  its  fate."  —  Guizot. 

MR.  SPEAKER,  —  Nothing  but  the  gravity  of  this  subject 
would  induce  me  to  make  a  speech  in  my  present  condi 
tion  of  voice.  But  I  must  attempt  it,  and  trust  that  the  kindness 
of  the  House  will  enable  me  to  be  heard. 

I  desire  in  the  outset  to  recognize  whatever  of  good  there  is 
in  this  bill.  It  has  some  great  merits,  which  I  cheerfully  recog 
nize.  It  is  intended  to  avoid  strife  in  a  great  and  trying  crisis  of 
the  nation.  It  is  intended  to  aid  in  tiding  over  a  great  present 
difficulty,  possibly  a  great  public  danger.  It  will  doubtless  bring 
a  result.  And  when  it  has  brought  a  result,  it  will  leave  the  per 
son  who  is  declared  to  be  the  elect  of  the  nation  with  a  clearer 
title,  or  rather  with  a  more  nearly  undisputed  title,  than  any 
other  new  method  that  has  yet  been  suggested. 

These  are  certainly  great  results.     At  a  time  like  this,  no  man 


COUNTING    THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE.  409 

should  treat  lightly  a  bill  which  may,  and  probably  will,  produce 
them  all.  Furthermore,  I  feel  bound  to  say,  if  I  were  to  speak 
of  this  bill  only  as  a  partisan,  —  a  word  much  abused  just  now, — 
I  should  say  that  I  am  not  afraid  of  its  operation.  The  eminent 
gentlemen  who  are  to  compose  the  Commission,  eminent  for 
their  character  and  abilities,  will,  I  have  no  doubt,  seek  to  do, 
and  will  do,  justice  under  its  provisions.  And  therefore,  believ 
ing  as  I  do  that  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  has  been  honestly  and 
legally  elected  President  of  the  United  States,  I  confidently  ex 
pect  that  this  Commission  will  find  that  to  be  the  fact,  and  will 
declare  it  Should  they  find  otherwise,  all  good  men  every 
where  will  submit  to  their  decision.  But  neither  the  wishes  nor 
the  fate  of  Mr.  Hayes  or  Mr.  Tilden  should  be  consulted  in 
considering  this  bill.  I  presume  no  one  here  is  authorized  to 
speak  for  either  of  these  gentlemen  on  the  question.  I  cer 
tainly  am  not.  It  is  our  business  to  speak  for  ourselves  and 
for  the  people  whom  we  represent. 

Before  considering  the  bill  itself,  I  pause  to  notice  one  of  the 
reasons  that  have  been  urged  in  its  favor. 

We  have  been  told  to-day,  in  this  chamber,  that  there  is  dan 
ger  of  civil  war  if  the  bill  does  not  pass.  I  am  amazed  at  the 
folly  which  could  use  such  a  suggestion  as  an  argument  in  favor 
of  this  or  any  measure.  The  Senate  at  Rome  never  deliberated 
a  moment  after  the  flag  which  floated  on  the  Janiculum  was 
hauled  down.  That  flag  'was  the  sign  that  no  enemy  of  Rome, 
breathing  hot  threats  of  war,  had  entered  the  sacred  precincts  of 
the  city ;  and  when  it  was  struck,  the  Senate  sat  no  longer.  The 
reply  to  war  is  not  words,  but  swords.  When  you  tell  me  that 
civil  war  is  threatened  by  any  party  or  State  in  this  republic, 
you  have  given  me  a  supreme  reason  why  an  American  Con 
gress  should  refuse,  with  unutterable  scorn,  to  listen  to  those 
who  threaten,  or  to  do  any  act  whatever  under  the  coercion  of 
threats  by  any  power  on  the  earth.  With  all  my  soul  I  despise 
your  threat  of  civil  war,  come  it  from  what  quarter  or  what  party 
it  may.  Brave  men,  certainly  a  brave  nation,  will  do  nothing  un 
der  such  compulsion.  We  are  intrusted  with  the  work  of  obey 
ing  and  defending  the  Constitution.  I  will  not  be  deterred  from 
obeying  it,  because  somebody  threatens  to  destroy  it.  I  dismiss 
all  that  class  of  motives  as  unworthy  of  Americans.  On  this 
occasion,  as  on  all  others,  let  us  seek  only  that  which  is  worthy 
of  ourselves  and  of  our  great  country. 


410  COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

"Self-reverence,  self-knowledge,  self-control, — 
These  three  alone  lead  life  to  sovereign  power. 
Yet  not  for  power  (power  of  herself 
Would  come  uncalled  for),  but  to  live  by  law, 
Acting  the  law  we  live  by  without  fear  ; 
And,  because  right  is  right,  to  follow  right, 
Were  wisdom  in  the  scorn  of  consequence." 

Let  such  wisdom  and  such  scorn  inspire  the  House  in  its 
consideration  of  the  pending  measure. 

What,  then,  are  the  grounds  on  which  we  should  consider  a 
bill  like  this?  It  would  be  unbecoming  in  me,  or  in  any  mem 
ber  of  this  Congress,  to  oppose  this  bill  on  mere  technical  or 
trifling  grounds.  It  should  be  opposed,  if  at  all,  for  reasons  so 
broad,  so  weighty,  as  to  overcome  all  that  has  been  said  in  its 
favor,  and  all  the  advantages  which  I  have  here  admitted  may 
follow  from  its  passage.  I  do  not  wish  to  diminish  the  stature 
of  my  antagonist;  I  do  not  wish  to  undervalue  the  points  of 
strength  in  a  measure  before  I  question  its  propriety.  It  is  not 
enough  that  this  bill  will  tide  us  over  a  present  danger,  however 
great.  Let  us  for  a  moment  forget  Hayes  and  Tilden,  Republi 
cans  and  Democrats;  let  us  forget  our  own  epoch  and  our  own 
generation;  and,  entering  a  broader  field,  inquire  how  this  thing 
which  we  are  about  to  do  will  affect  the  great  future  of  our 
republic;  and  in  what  condition,  if  we  pass  this  bill,  we  shall 
transmit  our  institutions  to  those  who  shall  come  after  us.  The 
present  good  which  we  shall  achieve  by  it  may  be  very  great ; 
yet  if  the  evils  that  will  flow  from  it  in  the  future  must  be 
greater,  it  would  be  base  in  us  to  flinch  from  trouble  by  entail 
ing  remediless  evils  upon  our  children. 

In  my  view,  then,  the  foremost  question  is  this :  What  will  be 
the  effect  of  this  measure  upon  our  institutions?  I  cannot  make 
that  inquiry  intelligibly,  without  a  brief  reference  to  the  history 
of  the  Constitution,  and  to  some  of  the  formidable  questions 
which  presented  themselves  to  our  fathers,  nearly  a  hundred 
years  ago,  when  they  set  up  this  goodly  frame  of  government. 

Among  the  foremost  difficulties  that  they  encountered,  both 
in  point  of  time  and  magnitude,  was  how  to  create  an  executive 
head  of  the  nation.  Our  fathers  encountered  that  difficulty  the 
first  morning  after  they  organized,  and  elected  the  officers  of  the 
constitutional  convention.  One  of  the  resolutions,  introduced  by 
Mr.  Randolph  of  Virginia  on  the  29th  of  May,  1787,  recognized 
that  great  question,  and  invited  the  convention  to  its  examina- 


COUNTING    THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE.  411 

tion.  The  men  who  made  the  Constitution  were  deeply  read  in 
the  profoundest  political  philosophy  of  their  day.  They  had 
learned  from  Montesquieu,  from  Locke,  from  Fenelon,  and 
other  great  teachers  of  the  human  race,  that  liberty  is  impossi 
ble  without  a  clear  and  distinct  separation  of  the  three  great 
powers  of  government.  A  generation  before  their  epoch,  Mon 
tesquieu  had  said :  — 

"  When  the  legislative  and  executive  powers  are  united  in  the  same 
person,  or  in  the  same  body  of  magistrates,  there  can  be  no  liberty ; 
because  apprehensions  may  arise  lest  the  same  monarch  or  senate  should 

enact  tyrannical  laws  to  execute  them  in  a  tyrannical  manner 

There  would  be  an  end  of  everything  were  the  same  man  or  the  same 
body,  whether  of  the  nobles  or  of  the  people,  to  exercise  those  three 
powers,  that  of  enacting  laws,  that  of  executing  the  public  resolutions, 
and  that  of  judging  the  crimes  or  differences  of  individuals."  l 

This  was  a  fundamental  truth  in  the  American  mind,  as  it 
had  long  been  cherished  and  practised  in  the  British  empire. 
There,  as  in  all  monarchies,  the  creation  of  a  chief  executive 
was  easily  regulated  by  adopting  a  dynasty,  and  following  the 
law  of  primogeniture.  But  our  fathers  had  drawn  the  deeper 
lesson  of  liberty  from  the  inspirations  of  this  free  new  world, 
that  their  chief  executive  should  be  born,  not  of  a  dynasty, 
but  of  the  will  of  a  free  people  regulated  by  law.  In  the  course 
of  their  deliberations  upon  the  subject,  there  were  suggested 
seven  different  plans,  which  may  be  grouped  under  two  princi 
pal  heads  or  classes. 

One  group  comprised  all  the  plans  for  creating  the  chief 
executive  by  means  of  some  one  of  the  pre-existing  political 
organizations  of  the  country.  First  and  foremost  was  the  prop 
osition  to  authorize  one  or  both  houses  of  the  national  legis 
lature  to  elect  the  chief  executive.  Another  was  to  confer 
that  power  upon  the  Governors  of  the  States,  or  upon  the  Legis 
latures  of  the  States.  Another,  that  he  should  be  chosen 
directly  by  the  people  themselves,  under  the  laws  of  the  States. 
The  second  group  comprised  all  the  various  plans  for  creating 
a  new  and  separate  instrumentality  for  making  the  choice. 

At  first,  the  proposition  that  the  executive  should  be  elected 

by  the    national    legislature   was    received    by   the    convention 

with  almost  unanimous  approval ;   and  for  the  reason  that,  up 

to  that  time,  Congress  had  done  all  that  was  done  in  the  way  of 

1  The  Spirit  of  Laws,  Book  XL  Chap.  6. 


4i2  COUNTING    THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

national  government.  It  had  created  the  nation,  had  led  its 
fortunes  through  a  thousand  perils,  had  declared  and  achieved 
independence,  and  had  preserved  the  liberty  of  the  people  in 
the  midst  of  a  great  war.  Though  Congress  had  failed  to 
secure  a  firm  and  stable  government  after  the  war,  yet  its  glory 
was  not  forgotten.  As  Congress  had  created  the  Union,  it 
was  most  natural  that  our  fathers  should  say  Congress  should 
also  create  the  chief  executive  of  the  nation.  And  within  two 
weeks  after  the  convention  assembled,  they  voted  for  that  plan 
with  absolute  unanimity.  But  with  equal  unanimity  they  agreed 
that  this  plan  would  be  fatal  to  the  stability  of  the  government 
they  were  about  to  establish,  if  they  did  not  couple  with  it  some 
provision  that  should  make  the  Presidential  office  independent 
of  the  power  that  created  it.  To  effect  this,  they  provided 
that  the  President  should  be  ineligible  for  re-election.  They 
said  it  would  never  do  to  create  a  chief  executive  by  the  voice 
of  the  national  legislature,  and  then  allow  him  to  be  re-elected 
by  that  same  voice ;  for  he  would  thus  become  their  creature. 

And  so,  from  the  first  day  of  their  session  in  May  to  within 
five  days  of  their  adjournment  in  September,  they  grappled  with 
the  mighty  question.  I  have  many  times,  and  recently  very 
carefully,  gone  through  all  the  records  that  are  left  to  us  of  that 
great  transaction.  I  find  that  more  than  one  seventh  of  all  the 
pages  of  the  Madison  Papers  are  devoted  to  this  Samson  of 
questions,  —  how  the  executive  should  be  chosen  and  made 
independent  of  the  organization  that  made  the  choice.  This 
topic  alone  occupied  more  than  one  seventh  of  all  the  time  of 
the  convention. 

After  a  long  and  earnest  debate,  after  numerous  votes  and 
reconsiderations,  they  were  obliged  utterly  to  abandon  the  plan 
of  creating  the  chief  executive  by  means  of  the  national  legis 
lature.  I  will  not  stop  now  to  prove  the  statement  by  a  dozen 
or  more  pungent  quotations  from  the  masters  of  political  sci 
ence  in  that  great  assembly,  in  which  they  declared  that  it 
would  be  ruinous  to  the  liberty  of  the  people  and  to  the  perma 
nence  of  the  republic  if  they  did  not  absolutely  exclude  the 
national  legislature  from  any  share  in  the  election  of  the  Presi 
dent.  They  pointed  with  glowing  eloquence  to  the  sad  but 
instructive  fate  of  those  brilliant  Italian  republics  that  were 
destroyed  because  there  was  no  adequate  separation  of  powers, 
and  because  their  senates  overwhelmed  and  swallowed  up  the 


COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE.  413 

executive  power,  and,  as  secret  and  despotic  conclaves,  became 
the  destroyers  of  Italian  liberty. 

At  the  close  of  the  great  discussion,  when  the  last  vote  on 
this  subject  was  taken  by  our  fathers,  they  were  almost  unani 
mous  in  excluding  the  national  legislature  from  any  share 
whatever  in  the  choice  of  the  chief  executive  of  the  nation. 
They  rejected  all  the  plans  of  the  first  group,  and  created  a 
new  instrumentality.  They  adopted  the  system  of  Electors. 
When  that  plan  was  under  discussion,  they  used  the  utmost 
precaution  to  hedge  it  about  by  every  conceivable  protection 
against  the  interference  or  control  of  Congress.  In  the  first 
place,  they  said  the  States  should  create  the  electoral  colleges. 
They  allowed  Congress  to  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
the  creation  of  the  colleges,  except  merely  to  fix  the  time  when 
the  States  should  appoint  them.  And  in  order  to  exclude 
Congress  by  positive  prohibition,  in  the  last  days  of  the  con 
vention,  they  provided  that  no  member  of  either  House  of 
Congress  should  be  appointed  an  Elector;  so  that  not  even  by 
the  personal  influence  of  any  one  of  its  members  could  the 
Congress  interfere  with  the  election  of  a  President. 

The  creation  of  a  President  under  our  Constitution  consists 
of  three  distinct  steps :  first,  the  creation  of  the  electoral  col 
leges  ;  second,  the  vote  of  the  colleges ;  and  third,  the  opening 
and  counting  of  their  votes.  This  is  the  simple  plan  of  the 
Constitution. 

The  creation  of  the  colleges  is  left  absolutely  to  the  States, 
within  the  five  limitations  that  I  had  the  honor  to  mention  to 
the  House  a  few  days  ago :  first,  it  must  be  a  State  that  ap 
points  Electors ;  second,  the  State  is  limited  as  to  the  number 
of  Electors  that  it  may  appoint;  third,  Electors  shall  not  be 
members  of  Congress,  nor  officers  of  the  United  States;  fourth, 
the  time  for  appointing  Electors  may  be  fixed  by  Congress; 
and  fifth,  the  time  when  their  appointment  is  announced,  which 
must  be  before  the  date  for  giving  their  votes,  may  also  be 
fixed  by  Congress. 

These  five  simple  limitations,  and  these  alone,  were  laid  upon 
the  States.  Every  other  act,  fact,  and  thing  possible  to  be  done 
in  creating  the  electoral  colleges  was  put  absolutely  and  uncon 
trollably  in  the  power  of  the  States  themselves.  Within  these 
limitations,  Congress  has  no  more  power  to  touch  them  in  this 
work  than  England  or  France.  That  is  the  first  step. 


414  COUNTING    THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

The  second  is  still  plainer  and  simpler,  namely,  the  work  of 
the  colleges.  They  are  created  as  an  independent  and  sepa 
rate  power,  or  set  of  powers,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  electing  a 
President.  They  are  created  by  the  States.  Congress  has 
just  one  thing  to  do  with  them,  and  only  one;  it  may  fix  the 
day  when  they  shall  meet.  By  the  act  of  1792  Congress  fixed 
the  day  as  it  still  stands  in  the  law;  and  there  its  authority 
over  the  colleges  ended.  There  was  a  later  act,  of  1845,  which 
gave  to  the  States  authority  to  provide  by  law  for  filling  vacan 
cies  of  Electors  in  these  colleges ;  and  Congress  has  passed  no 
other  law  on  the  subject. 

The  States  having  created  them,  the  time  of  their  assemblage 
having  been  fixed  by  Congress,  and  their  power  to  fill  vacancies 
having  been  regulated  by  State  laws,  the  colleges  are  as  inde 
pendent  in  the  exercise  of  their  functions  as  is  any  department 
of  the  government  within  its  sphere.  Being  thus  equipped, 
their  powers  are  restrained  by  a  few  simple  limitations  laid  upon 
them  by  the  Constitution  itself:  first,  they  must  vote  for  a  na 
tive-born  citizen ;  second,  for  a  man  who  has  been  fourteen 
years  a  resident  of  the  United  States ;  third,  at  least  one  of  the 
persons  for  whom  they  vote  must  not  be  a  citizen  of  their  own 
State ;  fourth,  the  mode  of  voting  and  certifying  their  returns  is 
prescribed  by  the  Constitution  itself.  Within  these  simple  and 
plain  limitations  the  electoral  colleges  are  absolutely  indepen 
dent  of  the  States  and  of  Congress. 

One  fact  in  the  history  of  the  constitutional  convention,  which 
I  have  not  seen  noticed  in  any  of  the  recent  debates,  illustrates 
very  clearly  how  careful  our  fathers  were  to  preserve  these  col 
leges  from  the  interference  of  Congress,  and  to  protect  their 
independence  by  the  bulwarks  of  the  Constitution  itself.  In  the 
draught  of  the  electoral  system  reported  on  September  4,  1787, 
it  was  provided  that  "  the  Legislature  may  determine  the  time  of 
choosing  and  assembling  the  Electors,  and  the  manner  of  cer 
tifying  and  transmitting  the  votes"  l  That  was  the  language  of 
the  original  draught;  but  our  fathers  had  determined  that  the 
national  legislature  should  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  action 
of  the  colleges  ;  and  the  words  that  gave  Congress  the  power  to 
prescribe  the  manner  of  certifying  and  transmitting  their  votes 
were  stricken  out.  The  instrument  itself  prescribed  the  mode. 
Thus  Congress  was  wholly  excluded  from  the  colleges.  The 
1  Elliot's  Debates,  Vol.  I.  p.  283. 


COUNTING    THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE.  415 

Constitution  swept  the  ground  clear  of  all  intruders  ;  and  placed 
its  own  imperial  guardianship  around  the  independence  of  the 
electoral  colleges,  by  forbidding  even  Congress  to  enter  the  sa 
cred  circle.  No  Congressman  could  enter ;  and,  except  to  fix 
the  day  of  their  meeting,  Congress  could  not  speak  to  the 
Electors. 

These  colleges  are  none  the  less  sovereign  and  independent 
because  they  exist  only  for  a  day.  They  meet  on  the  same 
day  in  all  the  States ;  they  do  their  work  summarily,  in  one 
day,  and  dissolve  forever.  There  is  no  power  to  interfere,  no 
power  to  recall  them,  no  power  to  revise  their  action.  Their 
work  is  done ;  the  record  is  made  up,  signed,  sealed,  and  trans 
mitted  ;  and  thus  the  second  great  act  in  the  Presidential  election 
is  completed.  I  ought  to  correct  myself:  the  second  act  is  the 
Presidential  election.  The  election  is  finished  the  hour  when 
the  electoral  colleges  have  cast  their  votes  and  sealed  up  the 
record. 

Still,  there  is  a  third  step  in  the  process ;  and  it  is  shorter, 
plainer,  simpler,  than  the  other  two.  These  sealed  certificates 
of  the  electoral  colleges  are  forwarded  to  the  President  of  the 
Senate,  where  they  rest  under  the  silence  of  the  seals  for  more 
than  two  months.  The  Constitution  assumes  that  the  result  of 
the  election  is  still  unknown.  But  on  a  day  fixed  by  law,  and 
the  only  day,  of  all  the  days  of  February,  on  which  the  law 
commands  Congress  to  be  in  session,  the  last  act  in  the  plan  of 
electing  a  President  is  to  be  performed.  How  plain  and  simple 
are  the  words  that  describe  this  third  and  last  step  !  '  Here  they 
are :  "  The  President  of  the  Senate  shall,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  open  all  the  certificates, 
and  the  votes  shall  then  be  counted."  l  Here  is  no  ambiguity. 
Two  words  dominate  and  inspire  the  clause :  they  are  the 
words  open  and  count.  These  words  are  not  shrouded  in  the 
black-letter  mysteries  of  the  law.  They  are  plain  words,  under 
stood  by  every  man  who  speaks  our  mother  tongue,  and  need 
no  lexicon  or  commentary. 

Consider  the  grand  and  simple  ceremonial  by  which  the  third 
act  is  to  be  completed.  On  the  day  fixed  by  law,  the  two 
houses  of  Congress  are  assembled.  The  President  of  the  Sen 
ate,  who,  by  the  Constitution,  has  been  made  the  custodian  of 
the  sealed  certificates  from  all  the  electoral  colleges,  takes  his 

1  Amendment  XII. 


416  COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

place.  The  Constitution  requires  a  "  person "  and  a  "  pres 
ence."  That  "  person "  is  the  President  of  the  Senate ;  and 
that  "  presence  "  is  the  presence  of  the  two  houses.  Then  two 
filings  are  to  be  done.  The  certificates  are  to  be  opened,  and 
the  votes  are  to  be  counted.  These  are  not  legislative  acts,  but 
clearly  and  plainly  executive  acts.  I  challenge  any  man  to  find 
anywhere  an  accepted  definition  of  an  executive  act  that  does 
not  include  both  these.  They  cannot  be  tortured  into  a  mean 
ing  that  will  carry  them  beyond  the  boundaries  of  executive 
action.  And  one  of  these  acts  the  President  of  the  Senate  is 
peremptorily  ordered  to  perform.  The  Constitution  commands 
him  to  "  open  all  the  certificates."  Certificates  of  what?  Cer 
tificates  of  the  votes  of  the  electoral  colleges.  Not  any  certifi 
cates  that  anybody  may  choose  to  send,  but  certificates  of  Elec 
tors  appointed  by  the  States.  The  President  of  the  Senate  is 
presumed  to  know  what  are  the  States  in  the  Union ;  who  are 
their  officers  ;  and  when  he  opens  the  certificates,  he  learns  from 
the  official  record  who  have  been  appointed  Electors,  and  he 
finds  their  votes. 

The  Constitution  contemplated  the  President  of  the  Senate  as 
the  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  the  elect  of  all  the  peo 
ple.  And  to  him  is  confided  the  great  trust,  the  custodianship 
of  the  only  official  record  of  the  election  of  President.  What 
is  it  to  "  open  the  certificates"?  It  would  be  a  narrow  and 
inadequate  view  of  that  phrase  to  say  that  it  means  only  the 
breaking  of  the  seals.  To  open  an  envelope  is  not  to  "  open 
the  certificates."  The  certificate  is  not  the  paper  on  which  the 
record  is  made ;  it  is  the  record  itself.  To  open  the  certificate 
is  not  a  physical,  but  an  intellectual  act.  It  is  to  make  patent 
the  record,  —  to  publish  it.  When  that  is  done,  the  election  of 
President  and  Vice-President  is  published.  But  one  thing  re 
mains  to  be  done ;  and  here  the  language  of  the  Constitution 
changes  from  the  active  to  the  passive  voice,  from  the  personal 
to  the  impersonal.  To  the  trusted  custodian  of  the  votes  suc 
ceeds  the  impersonality  of  arithmetic ;  the  votes  have  been 
made  known ;  there  remains  only  the  command  of  the  Consti 
tution :  "The  votes  shall  then  be  counted,"  that  is,  the  numbers 
shall  be  added  up. 

No  further  act  is  required.  The  Constitution  itself  declares 
the  result.  "  The  person  having  the  greatest  number  of  votes  for 
President  shall  be  the  President,  if  such  number  be  a  majority 


COUNTING    THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE.  417 

of  the  whole  number  of  Electors  appointed."  1  If  no  person  has 
such  majority,  the  House  of  Representatives  shall  immediately 
choose  a  President;  not  the  House  as  organized  for  legislation, 
but  a  new  electoral  college  is  created  out  of  the  members  of 
the  House,  by  means  of  which  each  State  has  one  vote  for 
President,  and  only  one. 

To  review  the  ground  over  which  I  have  travelled.  The  sev 
eral  acts  that  constitute  the  election  of  a  President  may  be 
symbolized  by  a  pyramid  consisting  of  three  massive,  separate 
blocks.  The  first,  the  creation  of  the  electoral  colleges  by  the 
States,  is  the  broad  base.  It  qmbraces  the  legislative,  the  judi 
cial,  and  the  executive  powers  of  the  States.  All  the  depart 
ments  of  the  State  government  and  all  the  voters  of  the  State 
co-operate  in  shaping  and  perfecting  it.  The  action  of  the  elec 
toral  colleges  forms  the  second  block,  perfect  in  itself,  and  inde 
pendent  of  the  others,  superimposed  with  exactness  upon  the 
first.  The  opening  and  counting  of  the  votes  of  the  colleges  is 
the  block  that  crowns  and  completes  the  pyramid. 

Such,  Mr.  Speaker,  is  the  grand  and  simple  plan  by  which 
the  framers  of  the  Constitution  empowered  all  the  people,  act 
ing  under  the  laws  of  the  several  States,  to  create  special  and 
select  colleges  of  independent  electors  to  choose  a  President, 
who  should  be,  not  the  creature  of  Congress  nor  of  the  States, 
but  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  whole  nation,  the  elect  of  all  the 
people. 

When  the  Constitution  was  completed  and  sent  to  the  people 
of  the  States  for  ratification,  it  was  subjected  to  the  severest 
criticism  of  the  ablest  men  of  that  generation.  Those  sections 
which  related  to  the  election  of  President  not  only  escaped 
censure,  but  received  the  highest  commendation.  The  sixty- 
eighth  number  of  the  Federalist,  written  by  Alexander  Hamil 
ton,  was  devoted  to  this  feature  of  the  instrument.  That  great 
writer  congratulated  the  country  that  the  convention  had  de 
vised  a  method  that  made  the  President  free  from  all  pre-exist 
ing  bodies,  that  protected  the  process  of  election  from  all  inter 
ference  by  Congress,  and  from  the  cabals  and  intrigues  so  likely 
to  arise  in  legislative  bodies. 

"The  mode  of  appointment  of  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  United 
States  is  almost  the  only  part  of  the  system,  of  any  consequence,  which 
has  escaped  without  severe  censure  or  which  has  received  the  slightest 

1  Amendment  XII. 
VOL.  ii.  27 


418  COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

mark  of  approbation  from  its  opponents.  The  most  plausible  of  these 
who  has  appeared  in  print  has  even  deigned  to  admit  that  the  election 
of  the  President  is  pretty  well  guarded.  I  venture  somewhat  further, 
and  hesitate  not  to  affirm,  that,  if  the  manner  of  it  be  not  perfect,  it  is  at 
least  excellent.  It  unites  in  an  eminent  degree  all  the  advantages,  the 
union  of  which  was  to  be  wished  for.  It  was  desirable  that  the  sense  of 
the  people  should  operate  in  the  choice  of  the  person  to  whom  so  im 
portant  a  trust  was  to  be  confided.  This  end  will  be  answered  by  com 
mitting  the  right  of  making  it,  not  to  any  pre-established  body,  but  to 
men  chosen  by  the  people  for  the  special  purpose  and  at  the  particular 

juncture They  have  not  made  the  appointment  of  the  President 

to  depend  on  pre-existing  bodies  of  men,  who  might  be  tampered  with 
beforehand  to  prostitute  their  votes ;  but  they  have  referred  it  in  the  first 
instance  to  an  immediate  act  of  the  people  of  America,  to  be  exerted  in 
the  choice  of  persons  for  the  temporary  and  sole  purpose  of  making  the 
appointment.  And  they  have  excluded  from  eligibility  to  this  trust  all 
those  who  from  situation  might  be  suspected  of  too  great  devotion  to  the 

President  in  office Another  and  no  less  important  desideratum 

was  that  the  Executive  should  be  independent,  for  his  continuance  in 
office,  on  all  but  the  people  themselves.  He  might  otherwise  be  tempted 
to  sacrifice  his  duty  to  his  complaisance  for  those  whose  favor  was  neces 
sary  to  duration  of  his  official  consequence.  This  advantage  will  also 
be  secured  by  making  his  re-election  to  depend  on  a  special  body  of 
representatives,  deputed  by  the  society  for  the  single  purpose  of  making 
the  important  choice." 

The  earliest  commentator  upon  the  Constitution,  St.  George 
Tucker,  of  Virginia,  writing  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  cen 
tury,  made  this  clause  of  the  Constitution  the  subject  of  special 
eulogy,  and  pointed  to  the  fact  that  all  the  proceedings  in  rela 
tion  to  the  election  of  a  President  were  to  be  brief,  summary, 
and  decisive ;  that  the  right  of  the  President  to  his  office 
depends  upon  no  one  but  the  people  themselves,  and  that  the 
certificates  of  his  election  were  "  to  be  publicly  opened  and 
counted  in  the  presence  of  the  whole  national  legislature." 

"  The  Electors,  we  perceive,  are  to  assemble  on  one  and  the  same 
day,  in  all  the  different  States,  at  as  many  different  places,  at  a  very  con 
siderable  distance  from  each  other,  and  on  that  day  are  simply  to  give 
their  votes They  then  disperse  and  return  to  their  respective  hab 
itations  and  occupations  immediately.  No  pretext  can  be  had  for  delay ; 
no  opportunity  is  furnished  for  intrigue  and  cabal.  The  certificates  of 
their  votes  ....  are  to  be  publicly  opened,  and  counted  in  the  presence 
of  the  whole  national  legislature There  is  no  room  for  the  turbu- 


COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 


419 


lence  of  a  Campus  Martius  or  a  Polish  Diet,  on  the  one  hand,  nor  for 
the  intrigues  of  the  Sacred  College  or  a  Venetian  Senate  on  the  other ; 
unless  when  it  unfortunately  happens  that  two  persons,  having  a  majority 
of  the  whole  number  of  Electors  in  their  favor,  have  likewise  an  equal 
number  of  votes,  or  where  by  any  other  means  the  election  may  devolve 
upon  the  House  of  Representatives.  Then,  indeed,  intrigue  and  cabal 
may  have  their  full  scope ;  then  may  the  existence  of  the  Union  be  put 
in  extreme  hazard."  l 

The  authorities  I  have  quoted  show  that,  great  as  was  the 
satisfaction  of  the  people  with  the  mode  of  choosing  a  Presi 
dent,  there  was  still  an  apprehension  that  trouble  would  arise 
from  Congress  by  the  only  avenue  left  open  for  its  influence, 
namely,  the  contingency  in  which  the  House  might  elect  the 
President.  Every  other  door  was  shut  and  barred  against  the 
interference  of  Congress  or  any  member  of  Congress. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  contrast  with  the  plan  that  I  have  sketched 
the  theory  of  this  bilL  I  have  studied  its  provisions  in  the  light 
of  the  Constitution ;  and  I  am  compelled  to  declare  that  it 
assails  and  overthrows,  to  its  very  foundation,  the  constitutional 
plan.  Congress,  finding  itself  excluded  from  every  step  in  the 
process  of  electing  a  President  until  the  very  last,  from  the  mere 
fact  that  its  presence  is  deemed  necessary  at  the  opening  of  the 
certificates  and  counting  of  the  votes,  takes  occasion  of  that 
presence  to  usurp  authority  over  the  whole  process  from  begin 
ning  to  end.  Coming  only  as  an  invited  guest  to  witness  a 
grand  and  imposing  ceremony,  Congress  becomes  the  chief 
actor  and  umpire  in  the  scene ;  and,  under  cover  of  the  word 
"  count,"  proposes  to  take  command  of  every  step  in  the  pro 
cess  of  making  a  President. 

Recurring  to  the  illustration  that  I  have  used,  Congress  hav 
ing  a  simple  part  to  play  in  reference  to  the  little  block  that 
crowns  the  pyramid,  proposes  to  reach  down  through  all  the 
others  and  supervise  the  whole  from  apex  to  base ;  or,  rather, 
it  proposes  to  overturn  the  whole  pyramid  and  place  it  upon 
its  apex,  so  that  it  shall  rest,  not  upon  the  broad  base  of 
the  people's  will,  but  upon  the  uncertain  and  despotic  will  of 
Congress.  This  is  usurpation  in  every  meaning  of  the  word. 
Though  the  Constitution  has  sought  to  -keep  Congress  away 
from  all  the  process  of  making  a  President,  this  bill  creates  and 
places  in  the  control  of  Congress  the  enginery  by  which  Presi- 

1  Tucker's  Blackstone,  Vol.  I.  Part  I.,  Appendix,  pp.  326,  327. 


420  COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

dents  can  be  made  and  unmade  at  the  caprice  of  the  Senate  and 
House.  It  grasps  all  the  power,  and  holds  States  and  Electors 
as  toys  in  its  hands.  It  assumes  the  right  of  Congress  to  go 
down  into  the  colleges  and  inquire  into  all  the  acts  and  facts 
connected  with  their  work.  It  assumes  the  right  of  Congress 
to  go  down  into  the  States,  to  review  the  act  of  every  officer,  to 
open  every  ballot-box,  and  to  pass  judgment  upon  every  ballot 
cast  by  seven  millions  of  Americans. 

I  know  the  bill  is  not  proposed  as  a  permanent  law ;  but  I  know 
equally  well  that,  if  the  Congress  of  our  centennial  year  shall 
pass  this  bill,  they  will  destroy  forever  the  constitutional  plan  of 
electing  a  President.  Pass  this  bill,  and  the  old  constitutional 
safeguards  are  gone.  Congress  becomes  a  grand  returning 
board  from  this  day  forward ;  and  we  shall  see  no  more  Presi 
dents  elected  by  the  States  until  the  people  rebuke  the  apostasy 
and  rebuild  their  old  temple.  Gentlemen  on  the  other  side  of 
the  House  have  expressed  their  indignation  that  one  or  two 
States  in  the  Union  have  established  returning  boards  to  exam 
ine  and  purge  the  returns  from  the  ballot-boxes  of  their  State; 
and  I  must  say  for  myself  that  I  would  not  tolerate  such  boards 
unless  intimidation,  outrage,  and  murder  made  it  necessary  to 
preserve  the  rights  of  voters.  All  the  evils  that  have  been 
charged  against  all  the  returning  boards  of  tbe  Southern  States 
this  bill  invites  and  welcomes  to  the  Capitol  of  the  nation.  It 
makes  Congress  a  vast,  irresponsible  returning  board,  with  all 
the  vices  of  the  returning,  boards  of  the  States,  and  none  of 
their  excuses. 

Now,  if  this  general  arraignment  of  the  bill  be  not  justly 
and  fairly  made,  I  should  be  glad  to  hear  the  distinguished 
gentlemen  who  approve  it  show  in  what  respect  I  have  misrepre 
sented  or  exaggerated  its  provisions.  . 

The  early  practice,  from  the  first  count  by  John  Langdon,  by 
special  direction  of  the  constitutional  convention,  was  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  view  I  have  taken.  These  precedents  have 
been  too  often  quoted  to  need  repetition. 

Mr.  Speaker,  our  people  have  lived  under  the  Constitution  for 
eighty-seven  years ;  and  in  all  that  time,  until  our  government 
was  nearly  wrecked  by  rebellion,  Congress  has  never  ventured 
to  touch,  with  the  smallest  of  its  fingers,  the  action  of  any  rec 
ognized  State  of  the  Union  in  creating  the  electoral  colleges, 
nor  the  action  of  the  colleges  themselves  in  electing  a  President. 


COUNTING    THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE.  421 

Why,  sir,  in  1856,  the  electoral  college  in  one  of  our  States  did 
not  cast  its  vote  on  the  day  fixed  by  law ;  but  the  Democratic 
President  of  the  Senate  counted  the  vote  of  Wisconsin  and  de 
clared  the  result,  in  spite  of  all  the  clamor  that  was  raised  against 
him  by  both  houses ;  and  that  vote  stands  on  record  as  a  part 
of  the  official  count.  For  more  than  three  quarters  of  a  century, 
there  has  been  but  one  ground  on  which  Congress  has  ever  chal 
lenged  and  excluded  an  electoral  vote ;  and  that  ground  was 
that  some  political  organization  calling  itself  a  State  was  not  a 
State  in  law  and  in  fact.  When  Missouri  tried  to  vote  before  it 
was  admitted  into  the  Union,  and  when  Indiana  and  Michigan 
tried  to  vote  under  like  circumstances,  their  right  to  an  electoral 
vote  was  challenged.  That  challenge  might  be  defended  on  the 
ground  that  Congress  alone  can  admit  new  States  into  the 
Union,  and  that  no  political  society  except  the  original  thirteen 
States  is  entitled  to  an  electoral  vote,  without  previous  recogni 
tion  by  Congress. 

In  1 865 ,  while  the  fires  of  our  great  war  were  still  blazing,  when 
the  vast  war  powers  of  the  Constitution  had  been  awakened  from 
their  sleep  of  half  a  century,  and  when  eleven  States  had  broken 
away  from  their  normal  relations  to  the  Union,  Congress,  with 
out  reflection,  and,  as  they  have  since  discovered,  without  the 
warrant  of  the  Constitution,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  keeping 
States  from  voting  that  were  not  yet  restored  to  their  places  in 
the  Union,  adopted  the  twenty-second  joint  rule.1  This  rule 
was  based  on  the  same  principle  on  which  Congress  had  chal 
lenged  the  right  of  Missouri,  Indiana,  and  Michigan  to  vote; 
but,  unfortunately,  it  did  not  in  terms  restrict  objection  to  that 
ground  alone.  From  that  joint  rule  has  sprung  most  of  our 
present  entanglement;  and  the  Republican  party  is  responsible. 
It  was  one  of  the  many  mistakes  of  that  party  during  those 

1  Joint  Rule  No.  22  provided  that  if,  upon  the  reading  of  the  certificate  from 
any  State  by  the  tellers,  "  any  question  shall  arise  in  regard  to  counting  the  votes 
therein  certified,  the  same  having  been  stated  by  the  presiding  officer,  the  Senate 
shall  thereupon  withdraw,  and  said  question  shall  be  submitted  to  that  body  for  its 
decision ;  and  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  shall,  in  like  manner, 
submit  said  question  to  the  House  of  Representatives  for  its  decision.  And  no 
question  shall  be  decided  affirmatively,  and  no  vote  objected  to  shall  be  counted, 
except  by  the  concurrent  votes  of  the  two  houses ;  which  being  obtained,  the  two 
houses  shall  immediately  reassemble,  and  the  presiding  officer  shall  then  announce 
the  decision  of  the  question  submitted  ;  and  upon  any  such  question  there  shall  be  no 
debate  in  either  house.  And  any  other  question  pertinent  to  the  object  for  which 
the  two  houses  are  assembled  may  be  submitted  and  determined  in  like  manner." 


422  COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

years,  when,  too  powerful  for  its  own  good  or  the  good  of  the 
country,  flushed  with  victory,  it  went  recklessly  forward  into 
acts  that  were  unwarranted  by  sound  policy,  and  of  doubtful 
constitutionality.  But  for  the  adoption  of  the  twenty-second 
joint  rule  in  the  midst  of  war,  and  its  continuation  after  the  war 
had  ended,  the  hasty  judgments  of  Senators  and  Representa 
tives  would  not  now  embarrass  this  Congress  in  solving  the 
present  problem. 

But  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that,  before  the  present  ques 
tion  arose,  a  Republican  Senate  confessed  the  wrong,  and  abol 
ished  the  rule.  At  the  last  session  of  Congress  every  Senator, 
without  distinction  of  party,  voted  to  declare  it  unwarranted  by 
the  Constitution.  Even  at  this  session,  and  in  spite  of  the  pas-, 
sion  and  heat  of  this  Presidential  contest,  all  but  four  of  the 
Senators  who  were  present  voted  that  the  rule  was  no  longer 
valid  or  binding.  Every  precedent  which  Congress  made  dur 
ing  the  last  fifteen  years,  under  that  rule,  has  come  back  to 
plague  those  who  are  seeking  to  find  the  way  out  of  our  present 
difficulties  by  following  the  Constitution  and  the  laws.  Without 
reflection,  men  of  both  parties  have  committed  themselves  to 
the  theory  of  the  twenty-second  joint  rule ;  and  their  commit 
tals  embarrass  their  action  to-day.  It  is  best  for  men  and  par 
ties  frankly  to  confess  their  errors,  and  correct  them. 

But  to  return  to  the  pending  bill.  Besides  the  general  ar 
raignment  I  have  made,  I  find  in  the  first  section  of  the  bill 
that  it  invites  objections  to  counting  the  votes  of  the  States. 
It  commands  the  presiding  officer  that,  whenever  a  State  is 
called,  he  shall  call  for  objections ;  and  as  many  objections  as 
any  two  members  of  Congress,  one  from  each  house,  may  please 
to  make,  shall  be  filed,  no  matter  what  the  ground  of  objection 
may  be ;  and  immediately  the  two  houses  shall  separate  to  con 
sider  them.  If  both  houses  agree  so  to  do,  the  vote  of  any 
State  shall  be  rejected. 

The  first  section  deliberately  provides  that,  though  a  State 
has  appointed  Electors  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  law,  — 
though  its  electoral  college  may  have  fulfilled  all  points  of 
the  law,  —  though  the  certificates  may  be  regular  and  perfect 
in  every  particular,  —  yet,  on  the  objection  of  two  members 
of  Congress,  the  two  houses  may  throw  it  out,  may  stifle  the 
voice  of  that  State,  may  nullify  the  constitutional  election 
of  a  President.  A  legislative  body  is  not  obliged  to  give  rea- 


COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE.  423 

sons  for  what  it  may  lawfully  do.  It  can  act  for  bad  reasons  if 
it  choose.  I  know  the  presumption  of  law  is,  that  all  function 
aries  will  do  their  duty;  but  when  we  are  conferring  powers, 
we  should  ask  what  it  is  that  we  permit  to  be  done.  And  the 
plain  declaration  of  this  first  section  is,  that  Congress  may,  at 
its  discretion,  for  any  reason,  good  or  bad,  or  for  no  reason, 
stifle  the  vote  of  any  State.  The  Constitution  commands  that 
the  votes  shall  be  counted ;  this  bill  declares  that  the  votes  may 
be  rejected.  It  is  a  monstrous  assumption,  a  reckless  usurpa 
tion  of  power.  Congress  may  not  use  the  vast  powers  herein 
granted ;  but  a  vote  for  this  bill  is  a  vote  that  Congress  can 
thus  act. 

In  opposition  to  this  grant,  I  hold  that  neither  house  nor 
both  houses,  acting  separately  or  concurrently,  have  any  more 
authority  to  refuse  to  hear  the  voice  of  a  State  when  it  speaks 
through  the  law  in  electing  a  President,  than  Great  Britain  has 
to  say  that  the  State  shall  not  vote.  Yet  this  first  section  in 
vites  contests,  and  assumes  the  right  of  Congress,  at  will,  to 
reject  the  vote  of  any  State.  If  this  section  becomes  a  law, 
every  close  State  will  hereafter  grow  a  luxurious  crop  of  con 
tests,  and  unload  their  noxious  harvests  in  the  national  Capitol. 
Not  as  in  the  past,  one  in  a  century,  but  squadrons  of  Cronins 
will  invade  the  electoral  college  at  each  future  election. 

From  what  part  of  the  Constitution  is  this  measureless  as 
sumption  of  power  drawn?  I  have  carefully  read  the  debates 
in  both  houses  to  find  the  source  of  this  alleged  authority,  and 
I  find  but  two  clauses  on  which  the  allegation  is  based.  The 
first  is  the  simple  fact  of  the  presence  of  the  two  houses  at  the 
opening  and  counting  of  the  votes.  How  much  power  can  be 
evoked  from  the  word  "  presence  "?  We  have  seen  that,  in  all 
the  previous  steps  in  the  process  of  electing  a  President,  the 
little  that  Congress  was  permitted  to  do  by  the  Constitution 
was  merely  to  fix  a  date ;  and  finally,  in  the  concluding  act,  the 
agency  of  Congress  is  narrowed  down  to  a  mere  shadow,  to  a 
presence.  That  is  all.  But  a  great  deal  of  ingenuity  and  elo 
quence  have  been  expended  to  add  power  to  that  "  presence." 
We  are  told  it  would  be  trifling  with  the  dignity  of  Congress  to 
call  the  two  houses  as  mere  spectators  of  a  dumb  show. 

It  may  throw  some  light  upon  this  word  "  presence,"  if  we 
inquire  what  the  different  States  of  the  Union  have  done  in  the 
matter  of  opening  and  declaring  the  votes  of  their  people  for 


424  COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

• 

State  officers.  T  have  taken  the  pains  to  examine  the  Consti 
tutions  of  all  the  States  of  the  Union  except  that  of  Colorado, 
which  I  have  not  seen,  and  I  find  this.  In  thirty  of  the  thirty- 
seven  States,  the  act  of  opening  the  votes  and  counting  and 
declaring  them  is  definitely  and  absolutely  described  in  their 
Constitutions  as  an  executive  act.  In  thirty  States  of  the 
Union  the  duty  is  devolved  upon  executive  officers.  There 
are  seven  States,  most  of  them  the  older  States,  in  which  the 
Legislature  itself,  acting  jointly,  or  by  means  of  joint  commit 
tees,  is  the  canvassing  and  returning  board  to  examine  the 
votes  and  declare  the  result. 

MR.  HOAR.  Does  not  my  honorable  friend  know  that,  in  every 
American  State  in  existence  when  the  Constitution  was  adopted,  the 
vote  for  Governor  was  counted  by  the  two  branches  of  the  Legislature  ? 

I  will  answer  my  friend  with  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  by  saying 
that,  in  a  majority  of  all  the  original  thirteen  States,  in  1787,  the 
Legislatures  elected  the  Governors.  The  people  did  not  elect 
their  supreme  executive  officer ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
when  the  Governor  was  elected  by  the  Legislature,  the  Legis 
lature  managed  the  whole  process  from  beginning  to  end.  It 
is  true  that  in  the  gentleman's  own  State,  in  Connecticut,  and 
in  New  Hampshire,  the  popular  votes  for  Governor  were,  and 
in  some  States  are  still,  returned,  canvassed,  counted,  and  de 
clared  by  the  Legislatures  themselves. 

MR.  HOAR.  My  friend  does  not  answer  the  question  to  its  full  extent. 
Does  he  not  know  that,  in  every  one  of  the  old  thirteen  States,  the  vote 
for  Governor  was  counted  by  the  Legislature,  it  being  true  that  in  some 
of  them  the  Legislature  cast  the  vote  as  well  as  counted  it? 

MR.  LAWRENCE.  Let  me  say  that  it  is  not  true  of  New  York.  On 
the  contrary,  the  votes  there  were  canvassed  by  officers  designated,  and 
the  Legislature  had  no  power  over  the  subject. 

Allow  me  to  read  the  provision  of  the  Constitution  of  my 
own  State,  made  in  1802,  under  the  immediate  inspiration  of 
the  constitutional  era,  a  provision  that  still  stands  in  the 
Constitution  of  Ohio  with  only  a  slight  verbal  change.  "  The 
Speaker  of  the  Senate  ....  shall  open  and  publish  them  [the 
returns],  in  the  presence  of  a  majority  of  the  members  of  each 
house  of  the  General  Assembly."  Substantially  the  same  lan 
guage  is  used  in  the  present  Constitutions  of  twenty-one  States 
of  the  Union.  In  these  States,  it  is  the  unbroken  practice  that 


COUNTING   THE   ELECTORAL    VOTE.  425 

the  presiding  officer  of  the  Senate  or  House  does  open  and  does 
publish  and  does  declare  the  result ;  and  only  where  a  contest 
arises,  regulated  by  law,  is  the  result  as  declared  by  him  ques 
tioned  at  all.  Though  their  Constitutions  require  the  presence 
of  a  majority  of  both  houses,  they  have  no  function  except  that 
of  witnesses.  If  the  dignity  of  twenty-one  Legislatures  is  not 
affronted  by  this  provision,  the  dignity  of  our  two  houses  ought 
not  to  suffer  by  granting  its  presence  one  day  in  four  years. 

An  incident  occurred  in  the  State  of  Ohio  nearly  thirty  years 
ago  which  is  worthy  of  mention.  The  election  for  Governor 
was  close  and  doubtful.  In  obedience  to  the  Constitution,  both 
houses  of  the  Legislature  assembled,  and  the  President  of  the 
Senate  proceeded  to  open  and  publish  the  returns.  As  the  tell 
ers  were  making  the  lists  and  footing  up  the  votes  an  objection 
was  made  to  counting  the  vote  from  one  of  the  counties,  and 
the  business  was  delayed  by  tumult;  when  the  President  of  the 
Senate,  taking  the  certificates  from  the  hands  of  the  tellers,  com 
pleted  the  count  and  declared  the  result,  in  obedience  to  the 
Constitution.  He  did  not  permit  the  performance  of  an  execu 
tive  duty  to  be  prevented  or  hindered  by  the  presence  of  legisla 
tive  witnesses. 

The  claim  is  set  up,  that  the  presence  of  the  two  houses 
implies  that  they  are  to  do  something,  —  that  they  are  to  count 
the  votes.  Formulate  that  construction  in  definite  words  and  it 
will  read :  "  In  the  presence  of  the  two  houses  the  votes  shall 
be  counted  by  the  two  houses."  That  is,  they  shall  count  the 
votes  in  their  own  presence.  Let  us  not  charge  the  framers  of 
the  Constitution  with  such  stupid  tautology. 

We  have  seen  that  in  the  third  step  two  things  are  to  be 
done,  two  acts  to  be  performed  ;  not  acts  of  legislation,  not  laws 
to  be  devised,  but  acts  to  be  done, — executive  acts.  And  the 
only  executive  officer  present  is  the  President  of  the  Senate. 
One  of  these  two  acts  he  is  expressly  commanded  to  perform ; 
he  "  shall  open  all  the  certificates."  That  is  past  question.  In 
reference  to  the  other,  the  Constitution  says  it  shall  be  done. 
We  are  asked  why  the  language  changes  from  the  active  to  the 
passive  voice.  I  have  already  suggested  the  reason  :  that  when 
the  roll  of  the  States  is  called,  each  answers  through  the  certifi 
cates  which  announce  their  votes  for  President  and  Vice-Presi- 
dent.  The  States  speak  through  the  electoral  colleges  when 
the  certificates  are  read;  and  nothing  is  left  but  the  imperial 


426  COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

command :  "  the  votes  shall  then  be  counted."  Arithmetic 
does  the  work.  It  may  be  in  the  person  of  the  President  of  the 
Senate,  a  teller,  or  a  clerk. 

What  can  be  plainer  than  that  our  fathers  intended  that  a 
certain,  summary,  and  unquestioned  result  should  be  had? 
They  determined  to  create  a  President ;  and  adopted  a  plan 
which,  if  not  overthrown,  would  certainly  accomplish  the  result. 
I  am  not  controverting  the  position  taken  by  my  friend  from 
Massachusetts,1  and  I  think  justly,  that,  under  the  general 
clause  in  another  section  of  the  Constitution,  Co.ngress  may 
regulate  the  method  of  doing  anything  that  the  Constitution 
orders  to  be  done.  I  admit  most  fully  that  Congress  may  reg 
ulate  the  act  of  opening  the  certificates,  and  may  regulate 
the  work  of  counting;  but  it  cannot  push  its  power  to  regu 
late  beyond  the  meaning  of  the  words  that  describe  the  thing 
to  be  done.  It  cannot  ingraft  a  judiciary  system  upon  the 
word  "  open."  It  cannot  evolve  a  court-martial  from  the  word 
"  count."  It  cannot  erect  a  star-chamber  upon  either  or  both 
of  these  words.  It  cannot  plant  the  seeds  of  despotism  between 
the  lines  or  words  of  the  Constitution. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  Congress,  under  the  general  clause  re 
ferred  to,  may  regulate  how  the  opening  of  the  certificates  shall 
be  done,  whether  in  alphabetical  or  chronological  order;  and 
may  make  any  regulation  necessary  and  appropriate.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  Congress  may  provide  by  law  who  shall  count  or 
add  up  the  votes ;  how  the  lists  of  votes  shall  be  recorded,  — 
whether  on  paper  or  parchment.  I  do  not  hold  that  the  Con 
stitution  has  made  it  the  exclusive  duty  of  the  President  of  the 
Senate  to  count  the.  votes.  That  is  no  part  of  my  argument. 
It  makes  no  difference  who  counts,  only  so  that  the  counting  is 
done.  I  am  seeking  to  find  what  authority  Congress  may  ex 
ercise  in  reference  to  the  election  of  the  President.  I  admit  that 
Congress  may  legislate  upon  the  subject  wherever  the  Constitu 
tion  has  made  legislation  possible.  But  I  insist  that  Congress 
can  go  no  farther.  In  reference  to  the  last  act  of  the  process, 
Congress  cannot  go  beyond  the  just  scope  and  meaning  of  the 
word  "  count."  If  gentlemen  want  to  "  stick  in  the  bark  "  in 
their  construction  of  this  clause,  let  me  follow  their  example  for 
a  moment.  If  you  tell  me  that  the  power  of  the  President  of 
the  Senate  ends  with  the  word  "  open,"  then  I  tell  you  that  the 

1  Mr.  Hoar. 


COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL   VOTE.  427 

presence  of  the  two  houses  is  dispensed  with  at  the  same  in 
stant.  He  shall,  in  the  presence  of  the  two  houses,  open  all 
the  certificates.  Stop  there.  If  at  that  point  "  the  Constitution 
turns  its  back  upon  the  President  of  the  Senate,"  it  also,  at  the 
same  moment,  turns  its  back  upon  the  two  houses.  The  "  pres 
ence  "  and  the  President  disappear  together. 

But  I  do  not  propose  thus  to  read  the  Constitution  with  a 
microscope.  I  admit  the  difficulty  of  the  situation.  I  recog 
nize  honest  differences  of  opinion  in  regard  to  the  true  construc 
tion  of  the  clause.  But  after  reading  them  all,  I  return  to  that 
clear  and  comprehensive  exposition  of  the  venerable  Chancellor 
Kent,  which  was  full  of  wisdom  and  prophecy.  It  was  his  opin 
ion,  that,  in  the  absence  of  legislation  on  the  subject,  it  would  be 
the  duty  of  the  President  of  the  Senate  to  count  the  votes  and 
declare  the  result.  I  do  not  object  to  an  act  of  Congress  to 
regulate  all  that  can  be  regulated.  I  have  never  objected  to 
such  legislation.  In  1868,  on  my  motion,  a  resolution  was 
passed  by  this  House  directing  our  Judiciary  Committee  to  in 
quire  into  this  question  of  such  vital  and  transcendent  impor 
tance,  and  report  what  legislation  was  possible.  But  no  action 
was  taken ;  and  in  the  absence  of  legislation,  we  are  remanded 
to  the  Constitution  itself.  If  we  obey  it,  we  shall  find  a  plain 
way  out  of  our  troubles. 

Again  I  return  to  the  bill  before  us,  and  call  attention  to  the 
second  section,  to  the  case  where  there  are  two  returns.  And 
here  again  is  an  invitation  to  anybody  to  get  up  a  contest  by 
sending  "  papers  purporting  to  be  certificates  of  electoral  votes." 
It  does  not  limit  the  contest  to  double  returns  from  the  officers 
of  a  State;  but  two  or  more  returns  from  anybody  residing 
within  the  territory  of  a  State  may  be  considered  under  the  pro 
visions  of  this  section.  If  anybody  within  a  State  manufactures 
a  return,  calls  it  a  certificate  of  votes  of  Electors,  and  forwards 
it  to  the  President  of  the  Senate,  he  must  receive  it  and 
treat  it  as  a  return,  and  submit  it  to  the  tribunal  provided  by 
this  section. 

Now,  in  the  case  of  a  double  return,  a  course  is  to  be  taken 
wholly  unlike  that  which  is  laid  down  in  the  first  section,  where 
the  vote  of  the  State  is  left  at  the  mercy  of  the  two  houses. 
The  double  returns  from  a  State  are  to  be  sent  to  a  mixed 
Commission,  consisting  of  an  equal  number  of  members  from 
each  house  of  Congress  and  from  the  Supreme  Court.  That 


428  COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

Commission  is  virtually  clothed  with  power  to  hear  and  deter 
mine  the  vote  of  any  such  State,  and  its  decision  is  the  law,  final 
and  conclusive,  unless  both  houses  shall  concur  in  reversing  the 
decree.  That  Commission  is  authorized  to  do  whatever  the  two 
houses  may  do  in  reference  to  deciding  the  Presidential  election. 
That  is,  Congress  delegates  its  power  to  fifteen  persons.  If  it 
be  a  delegation  of  legislative  power,  it  is  clearly  in  conflict  with 
the  Constitution ;  for  all  authorities  concur  in  the  doctrine  that 
legislative  power  cannot  be  delegated.  If  the  power  conferred 
on  the  Commission  be  executive  or  judicial  power,  then  the 
members  of  the  Commission  are  officers  of  the  United  States, 
and  their  appointment  is  a  legislative  appointment.  But  the 
Constitution  has  placed  the  appointing  of  all  officers  in  the 
hands  of  the  President  and  the  heads  of  the  departments. 

When  an  associate  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  late 
Judge  Nelson,  was  appointed  on  the  joint  high  commission 
to  negotiate  the  treaty  of  Washington,  his  name  was  sent  to 
the  Senate  and  confirmed  on  the  loth  of  February,  1871,  as 
were  the  nominations  to  the  same  commission  of  the  Secre 
tary  of  State  and  the  Attorney-General.  It  was  found  neces 
sary,  in  order  to  comply  with  the  Constitution,  that  those 
commissioners  should  be  appointed  by  the  President  and  con 
firmed  by  the  Senate.  If  the  Commissioners  here  proposed 
are  officers,  how  can  you  take  five  Senators  and  five  Repre 
sentatives  and  make  them  officers,  when  the  Constitution  for 
bids  that  a  member  of  either  house  shall  hold  any  office  under 
the  United  States?  Notice  these  difficulties  that  beset  you  at 
every  step  as  you  walk  through  the  mazes  of  this  bill. 

But  a  far  more  important  question  is  that  of  the  powers  con 
ferred  upon  this  Commission.  Here  is  certainly  a  new  thing 
under  the  sun.  This  Commission  of  fifteen  persons  is  empow 
ered  to  roam  at  will  throughout  the  realms  of  the  Constitution 
and  laws,  and  to  assume  whatever  jurisdiction  they  think  they 
are  entitled  to  assume  in  reference  to  the  subject.  No  jurisdic- 
tional  limits  are  prescribed ;  but  the  Commission  is  endowed 
"  with  the  same  powers  now  possessed  by  the  two  houses,  act 
ing  separately  or  together."  The  two  houses  of  Congress  say, 
in  effect,  to  the  Commission :  "  We  transfer  our  powers  to  you. 
Construe  them  for  yourselves.  Use  or  refuse  them  as  you 
please.  If  you  choose  to  confine  yourselves  to  the  papers  that 
have  been  delivered  to  the  President  of  the  Senate,  halt  there. 


COUNTING    THE   ELECTORAL    VOTE.  429 

If  you  conclude  to  enter  the  electoral  colleges  and  overhaul 
them,  enter.  If  you  choose  to  content  yourselves  with  such  an 
examination,  stop  there ;  but  if  you  wish  to  go  deeper,  and 
embrace  within  the  sweep  of  your  examination  all  the  States 
and  all  the  officers  of  the  States,  all  the  ballot-boxes  and  all 
the  ballots  in  them,  do  so.  Take  the  Sherman  report,  take  the 
Morrison  report,  take  the  Howe  report,  take  the  Palmer  report, 
take  the  Florida  report,  the  South  Carolina  report,  and  the  Cro- 
nin  report.  Accumulate  cart-loads  of  reports  and  documents 
upon  your  tables,  and  sit  down  at  your  leisure  to  digest  and 
make  the  most  of  them." 

Such,  Mr.  Speaker,  is  the  scope  of  possible  power  given  to 
this  Commission.  But  that  is  not  enough.  They  may  "  take 
into  view  such  petitions,  depositions,  and  other  papers,  if  any, 
as  shall,  by  the  Constitution  and  now  existing  law,  be  compe 
tent  and  pertinent  in  such  consideration."  They  may  also  send 
for  persons  and  papers,  because  they  have  all  the  powers  pos 
sessed  by  the  two  houses,  or  either  of  them ;  and  this  house 
certainly  has  shown  its  power  to  send  for  persons  and  papers 
beyond  any  of  its  predecessors. 

Now,  I  would  treat  this  bill  with  all  respect,  for  I  do  most 
sincerely  respect  the  men  who  made  it.  But  when  the  mem 
bers  of  this  Commission  come  to  verify  and  explore  their  pow 
ers,  they  will  find  one  limitation  so  thoroughly  Pickwickian 
that  I  am  sure  they  will  enjoy  it  as  literature,  if  not  as  law. 
That  limitation  is,  in  the  brief  and  crisp  language  of  the  bill, 
"  if  any."  The  Commission  may  do  all  these  things  enumer 
ated  ;  may  exercise  all  the  vast  powers  residing  in  the  Consti 
tution,  or  conferred  upon  either  house  of  Congress,  or  both, 
"  if  any."  In  reading  this  clause  I  was  reminded  of  a  speech 
delivered  in  this  hall  about  ten  years  ago  by  a  gentleman  who 
was  imploring  us  to  receive  our  Southern  brethren  that  came 
knocking  at  the  doors  of  Congress,  and  not  keep  them  out  any 
longer.  A  distinguished  gentleman  from  Illinois  rose  and  said : 
"  I  desire  to  ask  the  gentleman  from  New  Jersey  what  he  would 
do  if  our  Southern  brethren,  as  he  calls  them,  should  come  to 
our  doors  with  certificates  of  election  to  Congress,  and  ask  to 
be  admitted  while  their  hands  are  still  red  with  the  blood  of 
our  brethren  of  the  North?"  Pausing  solemnly  for  a  moment, 
the  orator  replied :  "  If  our  Southern  friends  come  to  the  door 
of  this  House  and  ask  to  be  admitted,  I,  sir,  for  one,  am  in 


430  COUNTING    THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

favor  of  receiving  them  in  the  very  spirit  in  which  they  come 
to  us,  provided  they  come  in  that  spirit''  So  the  Commission 
may  do  all  and  singular,  and  exercise  all  powers  that  are 
given,  "  if  any  " ;  but  of  the  "  if  any  "  they  must  judge. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  call  the  attention  of  my  distinguished 
friend  from'  Massachusetts  1  to  what  may  happen  if  this  bill 
should  become  a  law.  From  a  careful  reading  of  its  pro 
visions,  it  appears  entirely  possible  for  the  two  houses  and  the 
Commission  to  prevent  the  declaration  of  any  result  whatever. 
Remembering  that  there  are  thirty-eight  States;  that  in  each 
case  the  President  of  the  Senate  must  call  for  objections ;  that 
upon  each  objection  the  two  houses  must  separate;  that  the 
debate  may  proceed  for  two  hours  upon  each  objection;  and 
that  the  House  may  take  a  recess  for  one  day  on  each  of  these 
objections,  a  failure  to  reach  a  result  is  altogether  possible. 
Suppose  the  case  of  Florida  is  reached,  and  one  party  finds 
itself  disappointed  in  the  judgment  of  the  tribunal,  and  is  so 
determined  not  to  be  pleased  with  the  result  that  it  prefers  to 
prevent  a  completion  of  the  count;  how  can  such  an  attempt 
be  prevented  under  the  provisions  of  this  bill? 

There  are  but  twenty-eight  secular  days  from  the  day  when 
the  count  begins  until  this  Congress  will  expire  by  limitation. 
I  want  to  ask  my  friend  from  Massachusetts  whether  he  thinks 
there  is  no  danger  in  that  direction ;  whether  he  does  not  also 
see  that  this  bill  may  make  it  impossible  for  the  President  of 
the  Senate  to  obey  the  plain  mandate  of  the  Constitution,  that 
he  "  shall  open  all  the  certificates,  and  the  votes  shall  then  be 
counted"?  There  may  be  no  then  left  in  which  to  open  the 
certificates  near  the  foot  of  the  list. 

MR.  HOAR.  As  my  distinguished  friend  from  Ohio  has  invited  my 
attention  to  his  argument,  he  will  allow  me  to  ask  him  whether  the  case 
he  puts  is  not  precisely  such  a  one  as  may  happen  under  any  government 
under  the  sun ;  whether  in  any  government1  the  constituent  parts  may 
not  refuse  to  do  their  duty.  And  what  would  happen,  under  his  theory, 
if  the  President  of  the  Senate  did  not  choose  to  count  the  votes  ?  Does 
the  gentleman  suppose  the  two  houses  of  Congress  are  any  more  likely 
than  any  one  man  to  fail  to  perform  their  constitutional  duty,  and  thus 
permit  the  government  to  go  to  pieces? 

My  friend  strengthens  my  argument.  If  the  President  of  the 
Senate  should  refuse  to  open  the  certificates,  the  Senate  can 

i  Mr.  Hoar. 


COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE.  431 

depose  him  in  an  hour,  and  put  another  President  in  his  place 
who  will  obey  the  Constitution. 

MR.  HOAR.     Suppose  the  Senate  should  refuse  to  do  it  ? 

Then  you  have  a  legislative  body  which  you  cannot  control ; 
and  this  illustrates  the  radical  evil  of  this  bill.  It  admits  to  a 
share  in  counting  the  votes,  two  uncontrollable  legislative  bod 
ies  ;  but  when  that  duty  is  in  the  hands  of  one  person  he  is 
liable  to  punishment  for  neglect  or  malfeasance  in  office.  And 
precisely  for  that  reason,  my  theory  of  the  Constitution  is  safer 
and  more  practicable  than  that  of  my  friend. 

MR.  HOAR.  Then  the  body  that  you  cannot  control  is  the  only  thing 
you  have  got  to  control  him. 

Impeachment,  expulsion,  personal  disgrace,  all  bear  with  tre 
mendous  force  upon  the  individual  officer.  He  is  more  amena 
ble  to  public  opinion  and  to  the  law  that  can  seize  him,  and  acts 
with  a  keener  sense  of  personal  responsibility  than  a  legislative 
body  where  responsibility  is  divided.  The  bad  behavior  of  the 
two  houses  is  my  friend's  problem,  not  mine.  When  the  houses 
go  wrong,  there  is  no  remedy  in  a  case  like  this.  Quis  custodiet 
ipsos  custodes? 

MR.  HOAR.  That  is  a  doctrine  you  cannot  find  in  the  American 
Constitution,  or  in  the  utterances  of  a  single  one  of  its  framers. 

I  think  my  friend  will  acknowledge  that  all  executive  officers 
are  subject  to  impeachment,  removal,  and  punishment;  but  will 
he  find  anything  in  the  doctrine  of  the  fathers,  in  the  Constitu 
tion  or  the  laws,  by  which  a  legislative  body  can  be  punished 
for  a  dereliction  of  duty? 

The  radical  and  incurable  defect  of  this  bill  is,  that  it  puts  a 
vast,  cumbrous  machine  in  the  place  of  the  simple,  plain  plan 
of  the  Constitution  ;  it  adopts  a  method  which  invites  and  aug 
ments  the  evils  from  which  we  now  suffer.  It  assumes  that 
seven  members  of  the  Commission  will  cancel  another  seven; 
and  that  the  decision  will  finally  turn  upon  the  action  of  the 
fifteenth  unknown  member.  In  what  respect  is  this  better  than 
to  leave  the  President  of  the  Senate  to  decide  which  is  the  true 
certificate,  subject  to  be  overruled  by  the  concurrent  vote  of  the 
two  houses?  In  one  case,  the  decision  may  be  made  in  secret, 
by  a  person  who  is  yet  unknown.  In  the  other,  it  is  made  in 
the  presence  of  both  houses  of  Congress,  by  the  second  highest 


432  COUNTING    THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

executive  officer  of  the  nation.  That  there  are  difficulties  in 
the  present  situation,  I  freely  admit ;  that  there  may  be  doubt, 
honest  doubt,  in  the  minds  of  honest  men  as  to  who  is  elected 
President,  I  admit  But  I  think  the  bill  introduced  by  my 
colleague  from  Ohio,1  which  provides  for  submitting  to  the 
Supreme  Court  those  questions  of  constitutional  law  about 
which  we  differ,  would  be  far  better.  To  the  adjudication  of 
that  great  and  honored  tribunal,  all  would  bow  with  ready  obe 
dience;  but  this  novel,  dangerous,  and  cumbrous  device  is,  in 
my  judgment,  unwarranted  by  the  Constitution.  If  we  adopt 
it,  we  shirk  a  present  difficulty;  but  in  doing  so,  we  create  far 
greater  ones  for  those  who  come  after  us.  What  to  us  is  a  dif 
ficulty  will  be  to  them  a  peril. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  trespassed  too  long  upon  the  indulgence 
of  the  House ;  but  I  cannot  withhold  from  the  gentleman  from 
Massachusetts  2  the  tribute  of  my  admiration  for  the  earnestness 
and  eloquence  with  which  he  closed  his  defence  of  this  measure. 
I  even  shared  his  enthusiasm,  when,  looking  forward  to  the 
future  of  this  nation,  he  pictured  to  our  imagination  the  grati 
tude  of  those  who  may  occupy  these  halls  a  hundred  years 
hence  for  the  wisdom  which  planned  and  the  virtue  which 
adopted  this  act,  which  my  friend  believes  to  be  the  great  act 
of  the  century,  —  an  act  that  solves  a  great  national  difficulty, 
that  calms  party  passion,  that  averts  the  dangers  of  civil  war. 
Let  us  hope,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  they  will  not  be  compelled  to 
add,  that,  though  this  act  enabled  the  men  of  1877  to  escape 
from  temporary  troubles,  yet  it  entailed  upon  their  children 
evils  far  more  serious  and  perils  far  more  formidable ;  that  it 
transmitted  to  them  shattered  institutions,  and  set  the  good  ship 
of  the  Union  adrift  upon  an  unknown  and  harborless  sea.  I 
hope  they  may  not  say  that  we  built  no  safeguard  against  dan 
gers  except  the  slight  ones  that  threatened  us.  It  would  be 
a  far  higher  tribute  if  they  could  say  of  us :  — 

"  The  men  of  1876,  who  closed  the  cycle  of  the  first  century 
of  the  republic,  were  men  who,  when  they  encountered  danger, 
met  it  with  clear-eyed  wisdom  and  calm  courage.  As  the  men 
of  1776  met  the  perils  of  their  time  without  flinching,  and 
through  years  of  sacrifice,  suffering,  and  blood  conquered  their 
independence  and  created  a  nation,  so  the  men  of  1876,  after 
having  defended  the  great  inheritance  from  still  greater  perils, 

1  Mr.  Foster.  2  Mr.  Hoar. 


COUNTING    THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE.  433 

bravely  faced  and  conquered  all  the  difficulties  of  their  own 
epoch,  and  did  not  entail  them  upon  their  children.  No 
threats  of  civil  war,  however  formidable,  could  compel  them  to 
throw  away  any  safeguard  of  liberty ;  the  preservation  of  their 
institutions  was  to  them  an  object  of  greater  concern  than  pres 
ent  ease  or  temporary  prosperity ;  instead  of  framing  new 
devices  which  might  endanger  the  old  Constitution,  they  re 
jected  all  doubtful  expedients,  and,  planting  their  feet  upon 
the  solid  rock  of  the  Constitution,  stood  at  their  posts  of  duty 
until  the  tempest  was  overpassed,  and  peace  walked  hand  in 
hand  with  liberty,  ruled  by  law." 

During  the  many  calm  years  of  the  century,  our  pilots  have 
grown  careless  of  the  course.  The  master  of  a  vessel  sailing 
down  Lake  Ontario  has  the  whole  breadth  of  that  beautiful  inland 
sea  for  his  pathway.  But  when  his  ship  arrives  at  the  rapids  of 
La  Chine,  there  is  but  one  path  of  safety.  With  a  steady  hand, 
a  clear  eye,  and  a  brave  heart,  he  points  his  prow  to  the  well- 
fixed  landmarks  on  the  shore,  and,  with  death  on  either  hand, 
makes  the  plunge  and  shoots  the  rapids  in  safety.  We  too  are 
approaching  the  narrows  ;  and  we  hear  the  roar  of  angry  waters 
below,  and  the  muttering  of  sullen  thunder  overhead.  Unter- 
rified  by  breakers  or  tempest,  let  us  steer  our  course  by  the 
Constitution  of  our  fathers,  and  we  shall  neither  sink  in  the 
rapids,  nor  compel  our  children  to  shoot  Niagara  and  perish 
in  the  whirlpool. 


THE  question,  If  the  President  of  the  Senate  abuses  his  trust,  declar 
ing  the  wrong  man  elected,  how  can  he  be  punished,  and  what  redress 
have  the  people,  and  the  man  wrongfully  deprived  of  the  office?  did 
not  come  within  the  range  of  his  discussion.  It  may  be  pertinent,  there 
fore,  to  add,  that  Mr.  Garfield  once  assented  to  this  series  of  propositions, 
as  covering  all  the  ground  from  the  first  step  to  the  last  one  :  — 

1.  Each  State  is  to  choose  its  Electors  in  its  own  way.     If  this  is  by  a 
popular  election,  the  State  determines  the  voting  precincts,  names  the 
judges  of  election,  and  canvasses  the  vote.     No  power  in  the  world  is 
competent  to  go  behind  the  returns  to  inquire  what  has  been  done.    The 
nation  is  bound  irrevocably  by  the  action  and  findings  of  the  State. 

2.  Congress  is  in  no  sense  a  returning  board.     Neither  Congress  nor 
the  houses  have  anything  to  do  with  the  substance  of  opening  the  certifi 
cates  and  counting  the  votes.     This  was  with  him  a  great  objection  to  the 
Electoral  Bill.     "  It  makes  Congress  a  vast,  irresponsible  returning  board, 

VOL.  ii.  28 


434  COUNTING   THE  ELECTORAL    VOTE. 

with  all  the  vices  of  the  returning  boards  of  the  States,  and  none  of 
their  excuses."  The  houses  are  present  simply  as  witnesses  of  what  is 
done.  They  might  make  rules  as  to  the  manner  of  proceeding,  —  such 
as  the  employment  of  tellers,  the  order  in  which  certificates  should  be 
drawn,  —  but  nothing  more. 

3.  The  opening  of  the  certificates  and  the  counting  of  the  votes  are 
made  the  duty  of  the  President  of  the  Senate.     As  respects  the  substance 
of  the  proceeding,  everything  is  in  his  breast.     If  there  be  two  sets  of 
papers,  he  is  to  decide  between  them.     Of  the  regularity  of  the  papers 
he  is  the  sole  judge. 

4.  If  the  President  of  the  Senate  abuse  his  trust,  he  may  be  impeached 
or  otherwise  proceeded   against  according  to  law.      As  respects  him, 
there  is  no  other  than  punitive  redress. 

5.  But  suppose  he  declares  the  wrong  man  elected?     This  question 
may  be  answered  by  another  one  :    Suppose,  on  the  theory  that  Congress 
counts  the  votes,  that  the  wrong  man  is  declared  elected?     The  courts 
are  open.     Whatever  can  be  legally  done  to  correct  what  is  wrong  in  the 
one  case  can  be  legally  done  in  the  other. 

6.  If  any  one  recoil  from  this  theory  of  the  Constitution  because   it 
reposes  too  much  power  in  one  man,  —  the  President  of  the  Senate,  — 
it  can  be  replied,  that  it  is  far  safer  to  repose  the  power  and  the  responsi 
bility  in  one  man,  who  can  be  reached  by  legal  process,  than  to  repose 
them  in  the  two  houses  of  Congress,  consisting  of  several  hundred  mem 
bers,  who  are  swayed  by  all  the  storms  of  politics,  who  cannot  be  reached 
by  any  legal  process,  and  who  are  responsible  only  to  public  opinion. 


THE    FLORIDA    RETURNS 

IN   THE   ELECTION   OF    1876. 

ARGUMENT  MADE  IN  THE  ELECTORAL  COMMISSION, 
FEBRUARY  9,  1877. 


WHEN  the  law  creating  the  Electoral  Commission  was  enacted,  the 
Republican  party  had  a  majority  in  the  Senate,  the  Democratic  party  in 
the  House  of  Representatives.  To  save  the  appearance  of  partisanship, 
since  such  an  arrangement  would  make  no  difference  with  the  political 
complexion  of  the  Commission,  it  was  agreed  among  the  party  leaders 
that  the  Senate  should  appoint  three  Republican  and  two  Democratic, 
the  House  three  Democratic  and  two  Republican  Commissioners.  Mr. 
Garfield  was  unanimously  selected  by  his  fellow  Republican  members,  and 
the  House  ratified  the  selection,  January  30,  1877. 

The  Electoral  Commission  was  organized,  January  31.  The  act  made 
it  the  duty  of  the  Commission  to  consider  the  certificates,  votes,  or 
papers  from  a  State  that  should  be  referred  to  it,  "  with  the  same  powers,  if 
any,  now  possessed  for  that  purpose  by  the  two  houses  acting  separately 
or  together,  and  by  a  majority  of  votes  decide  whether  any  and  what  votes 
from  such  State  are  the  votes  provided  for  by  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  how  many  and  what  persons  were  duly  appointed 
Electors  in  such  State,  and  may  therein  take  into  view  such  petitions, 
depositions,  and  other  papers,  if  any,  as  shall  by  the  Constitution  and 
now  existing  law  be  competent  and  pertinent  in  such  consideration." 
Hence  almost  the  first  and  by  far  the  most  difficult  duty  that  the  Com 
mission  had  to  perform  was  to  determine  the  nature  and  extent  of  its  own 
powers.  What  powers,  if  any,  had  the  two  houses,  acting  separately  or 
together?  and  what  petitions,  depositions,  and  other  papers  were  com 
petent  and  pertinent  in  such  consideration  under  the  Constitution  and 
the  existing  law  ?  These  questions  came  to  the  front  in  the  Florida  case, 
which  was  the  first  of  the  disputed  States  brought  before  the  Commission. 

The  Florida  board  of  State  canvassers  canvassed  the  returns  of  the 
election  of  1876  as  directed  by  law,  and  declared  the  Republican  candi- 


436  THE  FLORIDA  RETURNS. 

dates  duly  elected,  and  the  Governor  of  the  State  gave  them  the  certifi 
cate  of  election.  So  the  regular  return  from  Florida  gave  the  four 
Electoral  votes  from  the  State  to  Mr.  Hayes  and  Mr.  Wheeler.  This  is 
Return  No.  i.  Returns  No.  2  and  No.  3  from  Florida,  which  differed 
only  in  minor  points,  were  to  the  effect  that  the  Democratic  candidates 
had  been  elected,  and  that  they  had  cast  the  four  votes  for  Mr.  Tilden  and 
Mr.  Hendricks.  The  Democratic  objectors  to  the  first  certificate  held  that 
Messrs.  Pearce,  Humphries,  Holden,  and  Long,  the  Electors  who  cast  the 
votes  therein  returned,  had  not  been  appointed  Electors  of  the  State  of 
Florida  "  in  such  manner  as  its  Legislature  had  directed,  or  in  any  man 
ner  whatever  "  ;  but  that  the  pretended  certificate  of  election  signed  by 
M.  L.  Stearns  as  Governor  of  said  State  was  in  all  respects  untrue,  and 
was  corruptly  procured  and  made  in  pursuance  of  a  conspiracy  "between 
the  Governor,  the  pretended  Electors,  and  other  persons  to  the  objectors 
unknown,  with  intent  to  deprive  the  people  of  Florida  of  the  right  to 
appoint  Electors,  and  to  deprive  the  Democratic  candidates,  Messrs.  Carr, 
Yonge,  Hilton,  and  Bullock,  of  the  right  to  said  office."  The  Demo 
cratic  objectors  asked  permission  to  introduce  evidence  to  sustain  these 
and  other  propositions.  Still  further,  they  asked  leave  to  introduce 
testimony  to  prove  that  the  canvassers  had  acted  under  erroneous  views 
of  the  law.  This  was  a  proposition  to  go  behind  the  returns  from  the 
State,  and  by  implication  to  canvass  the  votes  cast  for  Electors  in  Florida. 
To  this  the  Republican  managers  and  the  Hayes  counsel  before  the  Com 
mission  objected,  holding  that  the  action  in  the  case  by  the  State  authori 
ties  was  final  and  conclusive  upon  Congress,  and  therefore  upon  the 
Commission.  The  argument  involved,  first,  the  powers  in  such  cases  of 
the  two  houses  separately  or  together,  if  any ;  and  secondly,  the  con 
struction  of  the  electoral  law  itself.  It  was  upon  this  question  of  admit 
ting  evidence  to  prove  fraud,  thereby  going  behind  the  returns  from  the 
State,  that  Mr.  Garfield  made  this  argument.  By  a  vote  of  eight  to 
seven  the  Commission  refused  to  admit  such  evidence,  and  decided 
that  the  Republican  Electors  were  duly  appointed  by  the  State  of  Florida. 
The  ground  of  the  decision  as  to  the  Electors  was  thus  stated  in  the 
report  made,  February  9,  1877,  to  the  President  of  the  Senate  :  — 

"  That  it  is  not  competent  under  the  Constitution  and  the  law,  as  it 
existed  at  the  date  of  the  passage  of  said  act,  to  go  into  evidence  aliunde 
on  the  papers  opened  by  the  President  of  the  Senate  in  the  presence  of 
the  two  houses,  to  prove  that  other  persons  than  those  regularly  certified 
to  by  the  Governor  of  the  State  of  Florida,  in  and  according  to  the  de 
termination  and  declaration  of  their  appointment  by  the  board  of  State 
canvassers  of  said  State  prior  to  the  time  required  for  the  performance 
of  their  duties,  had  been  appointed  Electors,  or  by  counter  proof  to  show 
that  they  had  not,  and  that  all  proceedings  of  the  courts  or  acts  of  the 
Legislature  or  of  the  Executive  of  Florida,  subsequent  to  the  casting  of 


THE  FLORIDA   RETURNS.  437 

the  votes  of  the  Electors  on  the  prescribed  day,  are  inadmissible  for  any 
such  purpose."  1 

It  is  pertinent  to  add,  that  the  question  as  to  the  powers  of  the  two 
houses  of  Congress,  separately  or  together,  in  the  cases  pending,  was 
purposely  left  undetermined  in  the  law  creating  the  Electoral  Commis 
sion.  This  is  shown  by  the  proceedings  of  the  Senate  for  January  24, 
1877. 

Mr.  Morton  offered  this  amendment  to  the  bill :  "  Provided,  That 
nothing  herein  contained  shall  authorize  the  said  Commission  to  go  be 
hind  the  finding  and  determination  of  the  canvassing  or  returning  officers 
of  a  State  authorized  by  the  laws  of  the  State  to  find  and  determine  the 
result  of  an  election  for  Electors." 

Mr.  Edmunds,  to  test  the  question  on  all  sides,  offered  this  amend 
ment  to  Mr.  Morton's,  declaring  that  he  should  himself  vote  against  it : 
"  That  the  said  Commission  shall  have  authority  to  go  behind  the  finding 
and  determination  of  the  canvassing  or  returning  officers,"  etc. 

Mr.  Thurman  said  :  "  I  shall  vote  against  them  both.  I  have  a 
very  strong  and  decided  opinion,  I  may  say,  that  to  a  certain  extent 
the  decision  of  a  canvassing  or  returning  board  may  be  inquired  into, 
gone  behind,  in  the  language  here  used ;  but  whatever  may  be  my 
opinion  upon  these  subjects,  I  shall  not  vote  for  either  of  these  propo 
sitions,  because  to  attempt  to  decide  either  of  them  is  to  kill  the  bill." 

Both  amendments  were  lost,  and  the  bill  passed,  leaving  the  Commis 
sion  to  inquire  what  power  it  had  in  the  premises. 


MR.  PRESIDENT,  — We  are  called  upon  to  determine  a 
rule  of  evidence  upon  a  proffer  of  testimony  by  coun 
sel.  This  is  purely  a  question  of  law,  to  be  decided  within 
the  limitations  of  the  statute  which  created  this  Commission. 
We  cannot  go  beyond  those  limitations  for  any  purpose  what 
ever.  We  are  bound  by  our  oaths  to  search  the  meaning  of 
the  statutes,  and  make  our  answer  to  the  proffer  on  its  merits 
under  the  law,  without  regard  to  the  consequences  which  may 
result  from  the  decision. 

Such  being  my  view  of  our  duty,  I  have  been  pained  to 
notice  that,  running  through  all  the  arguments  of  the  counsel 
who  offered  this  testimony,  and  through  the  remarks  of  those 
members  of  the  Commission  who  favor  its  reception,  has  ap 
peared  the  assumption,  that  those  who  offer  the  testimony  are 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Electoral  Commission,  p.  56. 


438  THE  FLORIDA   RETURNS. 

able  to  prove  great  and  manifold  frauds,  and  that  those  who 
oppose  its  reception  do  so  because  they  do  not  wish  to  expose 
fraud.  I  wish  to  repel  this  assumption,  as  being  not  only  out 
side  of  the  law  we  are  seeking  to  administer,  but  as  being 
gratuitous  and  wholly  unfounded  in  fact.  It  may  not  be  out 
of  place  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Commission  to  the  fact, 
that  four  counts  of  the  Electoral  vote  of  Florida  have  been 
made,  as  appears  in  the  several  Congressional  reports  on  that 
subject.  Without  vouching  for  the  correctness  of  any  of  them, 
I  will  state  by  whom  they  were  made,  and  what  is  the  alleged 
result  of  each. 

First.  On  the  28th  of  November,  1876,  the  Secretary  of  the 
State  of  Florida  laid  before  the  canvassing  board  the  returns  of 
the  votes  for  Electors  from  all  the  counties  of  the  State ;  and 
a  count  of  this  gross  vote,  before  any  canvass  was  made  by 
the  board,  before  any  vote  was  rejected  or  any  correction  was 
made,  is  declared  to  have  shown  that  the  Hayes  Electors  had 
forty-three  majority  over  the  Tilden  Electors. 

Second.  On  the  6th  of  December,  the  board  of  State  can 
vassers  made  their  official  report  of  the  vote  as  canvassed  and 
compiled  by  themselves  according  to  law ;  and  that  report  de 
clared  that  the  Hayes  Electors  had  received  925  majority. 

Third.  On  the  10th  of  January,  in  obedience  to  the  order  of 
the  Supreme  Court,  which  had  issued  to  the  board  of  canvassers 
a  peremptory  writ  of  mandamus,  ordering  them  to  canvass  the 
votes  for  Governor,  and  to  include  in  the  count  some  polls 
which  they  had  thrown  out,  the  board  reconvened  and  recan- 
vassed  the  vote  for  Governor.  That  canvass  resulted  in  the 
declaration  that  Drew  was  elected  Governor,  and  Stearns  was 
not.  Although  the  order  of  the  court  did  not  disturb  the 
former  canvass,  so  far  as  it  related  to  the  Presidential  Electors, 
yet,  if  the  order  had  applied  to  that  canvass,  the  result  would 
have  been  21 1  majority  for  the  Hayes  Electors. 

Fourth.  After  Governor  Drew  was  inaugurated  and  the  new 
Legislature  had  assembled,  proceedings  in  quo  warranto  before 
the  District  Court  were  had,  which  resulted,  late  in  January,  in 
an  order  for  the  new  board  of  State  canvassers,  which  had  been 
appointed  by  Governor  Drew,  to  recanvass  the  votes  for  Presi 
dential  Electors.  That  canvass  was  made ;  the  result  was  for 
warded  to  the  President  of  the  Senate,  and  was  received  by 
him  less  than  two  weeks  ago.  According  to  that  count,  the 


THE  FLORIDA   RETURNS.  439 

Tilden  Electors  received  a  popular  majority  of  eighty-seven. 
But  this  count  was  made  long  after  the  electoral  college  had 
met,  given  its  votes,  and  dissolved.  Some  discredit  is  attached 
to  this  result  from  the  allegation  that  this  count  was  made  by 
a  board  specially  appointed  to  achieve  a  special  result,  after  its 
importance  became  known.  The  confirmation  of  this  count  by 
the  Legislature  of  Florida  has  the  same  post  hoc  character. 

Here,  then,  we  have  four  real  or  pretended  counts  of  the 
popular  vote  of  Florida  for  Electors ;  and  three  of  them  give 
the  Hayes  Electors  a  majority  ranging  from  43  to  925  ;  and  the 
fourth,  which  was  made  nearly  two  months  after  the  Electoral 
College  had  voted  and  had  become  functus  officio,  showed  for 
the  Tilden  Electors  eighty-seven  majority.  I  do  not  vouch  for 
the  accuracy  of  any  of  these  counts ;  but  they  are  sufficient  to 
show  how  unfounded  and  unjust  is  the  pretension  that  virtue 
and  right  are  on  the  side  of  the  Tilden  Electors,  and  that  frauds 
and  false  counting  are  to  be  attributed  to  the  other  side.  The 
extremest  claim  made  on  behalf  of  the  Tilden  Electors  is  but  a 
majority  of  eighty-seven  ;  and  that  is  set  up  against  three  counts 
on  the  other  side  '&$>  prima  facie  evidence  of  the  truth. 

I  have  referred  to  these  facts  only  for  the  purpose  of  repelling 
the  assumption  that  those  who  deny  the  authority  of  this  Com 
mission  to  canvass  the  popular  votes  of  a  State  do  so  because 
of  any  desire  or  willingness  to  cover  up  fraud  or  prevent  its 
exposure.  I  will  add,  that,  while  one  political  party  charges 
errors  and  frauds  on  the  part  of  the  State  board  of  canvassers 
in  declaring  the  result  of  the  election,  the  other  party  charges 
fraud,  violence,  and  intimidation  at  the  polls  to  prevent  a  full 
and  fair  vote  at  the  election.  We  must  resolutely  turn  away 
from  the  passionate  outcries  of  both  parties,  and  from  every 
consideration  except  the  law  which  we  have  sworn  to  obey, 
and,  in  the  light  of  that  law,  determine  what  evidence,  if  any, 
we  can  consider  in  reaching  a  decision  of  the  case. 

But  first  let  us  consider  what  class  of  evidence  is  offered,  and 
what  allegations  are  sought  to  be  established,  that  we  may  more 
intelligently  measure  the  offer  by  the  provisions  of  the  law 
under  which  we  are  acting.  Let  us  survey  the  boundaries  of 
the  field  which  we  are  invited  to  enter. 

First.  In  the  opening  of  his  speech  before  us,  one  of  the 
objectors,  Mr.  Field,  said  he  should  "  have  occasion  to  mention 
canvassers  only  in  one  county,"  and  "  that  county  was  decisive 


440  THE  FLORIDA   RETURNS. 

of  the  result."  He  asked  us  to  hear  evidence  that  the  county 
canvassers  of  Baker  County  threw  out  the  votes  of  two  polls, 
one  in  the  Darbyville  precinct,  and  another  in  the  Johnsonville 
precinct. 

Thus,  at  the  first  step  of  the  contest,  not  only  are  we  asked 
to  go  behind  the  certificate  of  the  Governor,  and  behind  the 
determination  of  the  State  board  of  canvassers,  but  we  are 
asked  to  review  and  correct  the  alleged  errors  and  wrong-doings 
of  a  county  judge,  a  county  clerk,  and  a  county  sheriff,  in 
making  up  their  returns  of  votes  to  the  Secretary  of  State. 
How  shall  we  do  this?  Certainly  no  member  of  this  Commis 
sion  will  deny  that,  if  we  enter  the  door  opened  by  Mr.  Field, 
we  must  hear  both  sides.  We  must  summon  the  judge,  the 
clerk,  the  sheriff,  to  learn  precisely  what  they  did  and  the 
reason  for  it,  and  must  have  before  us  the  returns  from  John 
sonville  and  Darbyville,  in  order  to  ascertain  whether  they  were 
lawful  and  regular  returns,  such  as  the  county  officers  were 
required  by  law  to  include  in  the  general  returns  of  Baker 
County.  Probably,  in  order  to  get  at  the  very  truth,  we  should 
be  compelled  to  summon  the  election  officers  of  Darbyville  and 
Johnsonville,  and  examine  the  ballots  and  poll  lists,  and  any 
contest  arising  in  reference  to  them. 

Second.  But  while  Mr.  objector  Field  is  willing  to  rest  his 
case  upon  the  polls  in  one  county,  Mr.  O'Conor,  the  leading 
counsel  for  the  Tilden  Electors,  asks  us  to  enter  a  much  larger 
field.  He  offers  evidence  to  show  that  the  State  board  of  can 
vassers,  "  acting  on  certain  erroneous  views  when  making  their 
canvass,  by  which  the  Hayes  Electors  appeared  to  be  chosen, 
rejected  wholly  the  returns  from  the  county  of  Manatee,  and 
parts  of  the  returns  from  each  of  the  following  counties :  Ham 
ilton,  Jackson,  and  Monroe."  Mr.  O'Conor  adds,  that  he  trusts 
he  has  omitted  none,  but  has  had  no  consultation.  This  ex 
tends  the  area  concerning  which  evidence  is  offered  to  election 
precincts  in  five  counties. 

Third.  Mr.  Evarts,  the  leading  counsel  for  the  Hayes  Electors, 
at  the  close  of  his  speech,  refers  to  the  votes  of  five  counties, 
one  of  which  was  not  named  by  Mr.  Field  or  Mr.  O'Conor. 

Fourth.  In  the  reports  of  the  committees  of  the  Senate 
and  House  on  the  subject  of  the  Florida  election,  I  observe  that 
testimony  has  been  taken  in  reference  to  polls  in  seventeen 
different  counties  of  the  State.  A  portion  of  that  testimony,  I 


THE  FLORIDA   RETURNS.  441 

have  no  doubt,  is  contained  in  the  large  packages  brought 
before  us,  but  not  yet  opened.  Much  of  the  testimony  referred 
to  in  the  Senate  report  relates  to  the  proceedings  at  polling- 
places, —  to  alleged  frauds  on  the  part  of  voters,  and  to  errors 
on  the  part  of  officers  who  conducted  the  election. 

This  summary  of  the  evidence  proffered  is  sufficient  to  show 
that  we  cannot  take  one  step  beyond  the  final  determination 
which  the  State  itself  has  made,  without  going  to  the  bottom  of 
the  poll.  In  brief,  this  Commission  must  assume  to  be  the 
canvassing  and  returning  board  of  Florida.  A  bare  statement 
of  the  proposition  shows  that  its  accomplishment  by  us  is  not 
merely  inconvenient, —  it  is  utterly  impossible.  But  if  the  law 
under  which  we  are  acting  commands  us  to  undertake  it,  we 
must  obey.  Though  I  opposed  the  bill  in  the  House,  and  re 
garded  it,  as  I  still  do,  in  conflict  with  the  constitutional  plan  of 
counting  the  electoral  vote,  my  opinion  was  overruled  by  the 
two  houses ;  and  I  shall  do  all  in  my  power  to  carry  out  the 
provisions  of  the  act  in  its  letter  and  spirit.  And  this  brings 
me  to  search  the  act  itself  to  ascertain  our  powers  and  duties 
under  it. 

This  law  is  based  on  the  assumption  that  it  is  the  right  and 
the  duty  of  the  two  houses  of  Congress,  meeting  together,  to 
count  the  votes  for  President  and  Vice-President.  It  prescribes 
the  order  of  proceeding  to  perform  that  duty.  When  the  cer 
tificates  of  any  State  are  opened,  if  no  objection  be  made,  the 
votes  of  that  State  shall  at  once  be  counted.  If  objection  be 
made,  two  modes  of  procedure  are  provided,  —  one  for  a  single 
return,  and  another  for  a  double  return.  The  two  houses  pass 
upon  objections  to  a  single  return ;  this  Commission  is  required 
to  act  in  cases  of  double  returns.  In  either  case  the  action  is 
to  be  according  to  the  Constitution  and  the  law.  In  each,  the 
object  to  be  reached  is  to  count  the  lawful  votes  of  the  State. 
The  provisions  of  the  act  which  regulates  the  conduct  of  the 
two  houses  in  cases  of  single  returns  will  throw  light  upon  the 
duty  of  the  Commission  in  cases  of  double  returns.  The  first 
section  of  the  act  provides  that,  in  cases  where  there  is  but  one 
return  from  a  State  and  an  objection  is  made  to  the  count,  the 
two  houses  shall  separate,  and  each  shall  act  upon  such  objec 
tion.  The  fourth  section  provides  that 

"  When  the  two  houses  decide  upon  an  objection  that  may  have  been 
made  to  the  counting  of  any  electoral  vote  or  votes  from  any  State,  or 


442  THE  FLORIDA   RETURNS. 

upon  objection  to  a  report  of  the  Commission,  or  other  question  aris 
ing  under  this  act,  each  Senator  and  Representative  may  speak  to  such 
objection  or  question  ten  minutes,  and  not  oftener  than  once  ;  but  after 
such  debate  shall  have  lasted  two  hours,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  each  house 
to  put  the  main  question  without  further  debate." 

Can  it  be  claimed  that  this  provision  implies  the  hearing  of 
testimony  and  the  trial  of  a  contest?  The  whole  time  allowed 
to  the  two  houses  to  decide  the  gravest  objections  that  may  be 
raised  to  the  counting  of  the  vote  of  any  State  or  of  any  Elector 
is  but  two  hours ;  and  that  brief  period  is  devoted,  not  to  the 
hearing  of  evidence,  but  to  debate.  There  is  no  provision  in 
the  section  for  taking  testimony,  or  trying  disputed  questions  of 
fact.  The  reasonable  construction  of  the  section  is,  that  the  two 
houses  decide  any  questions  of  law,  or  any  matter  of  informality, 
which  may  appear  on  the  face  of  the  certificates  opened  by  the 
President  of  the  Senate.  It  has  been  said  by  an  honorable 
member  of  the  Commission,  that,  in  deciding  upon  an  objection 
to  a  single  return,  the  two  houses  may  exercise  their  acknowl 
edged  power  of  inquiry  by  sending  for  persons  and  papers,  and 
may  use  testimony  already  taken  by  their  committees ;  but  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  contents  of  the  certificate  on 
which  the  objection  is  based  can  be  known  by  neither  house,  nor 
by  any  member  of  either  house,  until  it  is  opened  in  their  pres 
ence  ;  for  the  objection  provided  for  in  the  act  is  "  to  any  vote 
or  paper  from  a  State."  Certainly  it  will  not  be  claimed  that 
any  testimony  taken,  before  the  contents  of  the  sealed  package 
are  made  known,  can  be  valid  and  lawful  testimony  to  sustain 
an  objection  made  afterwards.  Such  testimony  might  be  ex 
parte,  misleading,  and  false ;  ^  and  yet  in  the  two  hours  allowed 
by  the  bill  it  might  be  wholly  impossible  to  procure  evidence  to 
overcome  it. 

If,  then,  we  take  the  proceedings  of  the  two  houses,  under  the 
first  and  fourth  sections  of  the  act,  as  a  precedent  for  our  action 
here,  we  find  no  warrant  for  receiving  the  evidence  offered. 
Again,  if  we  take  the  proceedings  of  the  two  houses  under  the 
first  and  fourth  sections  as  a  precedent,  we  should  compare  the 
time  granted  to  the  two  houses  with  the  time  we  have  already 
consumed  on  this  case.  We  are  far  into  the  sixth  day  of  our 
proceedings.  This  is  the  first  of  four  cases  to  be  submitted ; 
and  we  are  now  debating,  not  the  merits  of  the  case,  but  a  pre 
liminary  question  of  procedure.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 


THE  FLORIDA   RETURNS.  443 

the  admission  of  the  evidence  proffered  will  wholly  defeat  the 
object  of  the  bill. 

But  the  learned  Commissioner l  who  has  just  spoken  calls 
attention  to  the  clause  of  the  act  which  confers  upon  us  our 
powers.  It  is  in  these  words :  — 

"  All  such  certificates,  votes,  and  papers  so  objected  to,  and  all  papers 
accompanying  the  same,  together  with  such  objections,  shall  be  forth 
with  submitted  to  said  Commission,  which  shall  proceed  to  consider  the 
same,  with  the  same  powers,  if  any,  now  possessed  for  that  purpose  by 
the  two  houses,  acting  separately  or  together,  and  by  a  majority  of  votes 
decide  whether  any  and  what  votes  from  such  State  are  the  votes  pro 
vided  for  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  how  many  and 
what  persons  were  duly  appointed  Electors  in  such  State,  and  may 
therein  take  into  view  such  petitions,  depositions,  artd  other  papers,  if 
any,  as  shall,  by  the  Constitution  and  now  existing  law,  be  competent 
and  pertinent  in  such  consideration,"  2 

This  clause  declares  what  questions  we  are  to  decide,  and 
prescribes  the  rule  of  evidence  by  which  the  decision  is  to  be 
reached.  The  rule  of  evidence  is,  that  we  may  "  take  into  view 
such  petitions,  depositions,  and  other  papers,  if  any,  as  shall,  by 
the  Constitution  and  now  existing  law,  be  competent  and  pertinent 
in  such  consideration''  In  applying  this  rule  we  have  "  the  same 
powers,  if  any,  now  possessed  for  that  purpose  by  the  two  houses, 
acting  separately  or  together."  That  is,  the  Commission  is 
clothed  with  the  powers  of  the  two  houses  in  reference  to 
counting  the  votes  of  Electors,  but  in  nothing  else. 

The  act  speaks  of  "  petitions  and  depositions,"  but  it  does 
not  permit  us  to  consider  them  unless  we  find  that  the  Consti 
tution  and  the  law,  as  it  existed  before  the  passage  of  this  act, 
authorized  the  two  houses  to  employ  them  in  counting  the 
votes. 

This  act  confers  no  new  powers  upon  the  two  houses,  but  it 
makes  this  Commission  the  interpreter  of  the  powers  which 
they  possessed  before  its  passage.  It  is  well  known  that  the 
framers  of  the  act  were  unable  to  agree  upon  the  question 
whether  the  Constitution  confers  upon  the  two  houses  authority 
to  challenge,  for  any  purpose,  the  determination  of  the  State 
authorities  in  reference  to  the  appointment  of  Electors ;  and 
because  they  could  not  agree,  they  purposely  left  it  an  open 
question,  to  be  decided  by  the  Commission.  For  one,  I  did 

1  Mr.  Bayard.  2  Section  2. 


444  THE  FLORIDA  RETURNS. 

not  consider  it  an  open  question ;  and  I  was  unwilling  to  place 
it  in  the  power  of  any  commission  to  declare  that  the  houses 
possess  such  authority.  But  the  act  permits  us  to  decide  and 
pass  upon  the  question,  and  we  are  bound  to  decide  it  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  Constitution  and  existing  law.  Let  us  fully 
understand  the  precise  question  which  we  are  to  decide. 

The  law  of  Florida  provides  that  the  Secretary  of  State,  the 
Attorney-General,  the  Comptroller  of  Public  Accounts,  together 
with  any  member  of  the  cabinet  who  may  be  designated  by 
them,  shall  "  form  a  board  of  State  canvassers,  and  proceed  to 
canvass  the  returns  of  the  election,  and  determine  and  declare 
who  shall  have  been  elected  as  shown  by  such  returns.  If  any 
such  returns  shall  be  shown  or  shall  appear  to  be  so  irregular, 
false,  or  fraudulent  that  the  board  shall  be  unable  to  determine 
the  true  vote  for  any  such  officer  or  member,  they  shall  so  cer 
tify,  and  shall  not  include  such  return  in  their  determination 
and  declaration."  1 

This  board,  thus  authorized  to  "  determine  and  declare " 
what  persons  have  been  chosen  by  the  State,  did  determine 
and  declare  that  four  persons  had  been  appointed  Electors  of 
President  and  Vice-President;  and  the  certificate  of  the  Gov 
ernor,  now  before  us,  is  acknowledged  to  be  in  accordance  with 
the  determination.  On  this  state  of  the  law  and  the  facts,  as 
suming  that  the  Constitution  empowers  the  two  houses,  or  either 
of  them,  to  count  the  electoral  votes,  does  this  authority  to 
count  carry  with  it  the  authority  to  take  testimony  or  to  con 
sider  evidence  to  show  that  the  State  board  of  canvassers  acted 
upon  erroneous  views  of  the  law  of  the  State,  or  made  errors 
and  mistakes  in  determining  and  declaring  who  were  elected? 
This  is  the  main  question  we  are  now  called  upon  to  decide. 
If  the  two  houses  possess  such  authority,  we  may  hear  the  tes 
timony.  If  they  do  not,  we  could  not  consider  it  if  it  were  here 
in  our  hands. 

The  distinguished  Commissioner2  who  has  just  spoken  claims 
this  authority  for  the  Commission,  on  the  ground  that  the  words 
"  existing  law"  include  the  lex parliamentaria  under  which  each 
house  may  send  for  persons  and  papers,  and  may  take  testi 
mony  upon  any  subject  it  pleases ;  and  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  each  house  has  already  taken  testimony  in  reference  to  the 
election  in  Florida,  and  in  other  States. 

1  Section  4  of  Act  of  February  27,  1872.  '*  Mr.  Bayard. 


THE  FLORIDA   RETURNS.  445 

This  authority  to  take  testimony  is  not  expressly  conferred 
upon  either  house  by  the  Constitution.  It  belongs  to  the  class 
of  implied  powers.  It  is  incidental  to  the  power  to  make  laws. 
Because  Congress  has  authority  to  enact  laws,  it  is  a  necessary 
incident  to  that  power  that  each  house  may  procure  such  infor 
mation  as  will  enable  it  to  act  with  intelligence.  Incidental 
authority  cannot  exceed  the  express  authority  from  which  it  is 
derived.  Where  the  authority  to  legislate  ends,  there  the  inci 
dental  authority  to  take  testimony  also  ends. 

The  testimony  taken  for  purposes  of  legislation  is  not  testi 
mony  in  the  judicial  sense.  It  is  not  taken  in  accordance  with 
the  rules  of  evidence  which  regulate  a  trial  before  a  jury  or 
court;  but  it  is  rather  the  information  obtained  by  a  special  in 
quiry,  made  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  the  opinions  and 
wishes  of  intelligent  citizens  upon  questions  requiring  the  action 
of  Congress.  I  doubt  if  one  deposition  in  ten,  taken  by  the 
committees  sent  to  Florida,  would  be  admissible  in  any  judi 
cial  inquiry. 

Besides  the  testimony  taken  in  aid  of  legislation,  each  house 
may  also  take  testimony  in  the  case  of  a  contested  election  of 
a  member,  in  proceedings  to  censure  or  expel  a  member,  or  in 
the  still  more  strictly  judicial  proceedings  in  impeachment. 
But  these  are  authorized  by  the  clauses  of  the  Constitution 
which  provide  for  the  trial  of  impeachments,  and  those  which 
empower  each  house  to  "  be  the  judge  of  the  election,  returns, 
and  qualifications  of  its  own  members,"  and  to  punish  or  expel 
its  members  for  disorderly  behavior.  These  clauses  confer  no 
authority  whatever  upon  this  Commission.  They  do  not  relate 
to  the  subject  matter  which  has  been  referred  to  us. 

It  will  not  do  for  us  to  claim  the  same  powers  which  we 
should  possess  if  the  Constitution  made  the  two  houses  the 
judge  of  the  elections,  returns,  and  qualifications  of  Electors  of 
President  and  Vice-President.  The  fact  that  no  such  power  is 
expressed  in  the  Constitution,  is  strongly  against  our  right  to 
infer  it,  and  virtually  amounts  to  the  denial  of  such  a  power. 

But  I  base  my  opinion  on  the  rule  of  evidence  upon  other 
clauses  of  the  Constitution,  which  seem  to  me  conclusive  of  the 
question.  I  cannot  better  state  my  position  than  to  summarize 
the  argument  which  I  made  in  the  House  two  weeks  ago.1  I 
will  read  the  only  two  clauses  from  which  it  is  claimed  that 
1  See  speech  on  "  Counting  the  Electoral  Vote." 


44<5  THE   FLORIDA   RETURNS. 

Congress  derives  any  power  whatever  to  inquire  into  the  action 
of  the  States  in  appointing  Electors  of  President  and  Vice-Presi 
dent.  The  second  clause  of  the  first  section  of  Article  II.  pro 
vides  as  follows :  — 

"  Each  State  shall  appoint,  in  such  manner  as  the  Legislature  thereof 
may  direct,  a  number  of  Electors  equal  to  the  whole  number  of  Senators 
and  Representatives  to  which  ihe  State  may  be  entitled  in  the  Congress. 
But  no  Senator  or  Representative,  or  person  holding  an  office  of  trust 
or  profit  under  the  United  States,  shall  be  appointed  an  Elector." 

And  the  third  clause  of  the  same  provides :  — 

"  The  Congress  may  determine  the  time  of  choosing  the  Electors,  and 
the  day  on  which  they  shall  give  their  votes ;  which  day  shall  be  the 
same  throughout  the  United  States." 

These  two  clauses  contain  all  the  powers  conferred  upon  the 
States  in  appointing  Electors,  and  contain  also  all  the  limitations 
upon  these  powers.  There  are  five  expressed  or  implied  limita 
tions  upon  the  power  of  the  States,  and  only  five.  The  limita 
tions  are  either  absolute  in  the  Constitution  itself,  or  such  as 
authorize  Congress  to  fix  limitations.  And  if  Congress  has  any 
authority  whatever  to  interfere  with  the  action  of  the  States  in 
the  appointment  of  Electors,  that  authority  must  be  found  in 
some  one  or  more  of  the  five  limitations.  Now  what  are  these 
limitations? 

First.  It  must  be  a  State  that  elects  the  Electors;  and  as 
Congress  alone  has  the  authority  to  admit  new  States  into  the 
Union,  if  any  political  organization,  not  a  State,  should  cast  a 
vote  for  Presidential  Electors,  and  if  such  pretended  Electors 
should  send  a  certificate  of  their  vote  for  President  and  Vice- 
President,  the  Congress  would  undoubtedly  have  power  to  in 
quire  into  the  right  of  such  political  organization  to  participate 
in  the  election. 

Second.  No  State  can  have  more  Electors  than  the  number 
of  Senators  and  Representatives  to  which  that  State  is  entitled  in 
Congress  at  the  time  of  the  Presidential  election.  If  any  State 
presumes  to  elect  more,  no  doubt  that  can  be  inquired  into.  The 
surplus  votes  cannot  be  counted.  That  is  the  second  limitation. 

Third.  The  Constitution  provides  that  no  person  shall  be 
appointed  an  Elector  for  President  and  Vice-President  who  is 
either  a  Senator  or  Representative  in  Congress,  or  holds  any 
office  of  trust  or  profit  under  the  United  States.  Without 


THE  FLORIDA   RETURNS.  447 

doubt,  a  violation  of  this  provision  may  be  inquired  into ;  for  it 
is  distinctly  declared  as  a  limitation  of  the  authority  of  the 
State.  Whether  that  inquiry  can  be  made  without  special  legis 
lation  prescribing  a  mode  of  procedure,  is  a  question  aside  from 
the  topic  I  am  now  discussing. 

Fourth.  Congress  is  empowered  by  the  Constitution  to  fix 
the  day  when  the  States  shall  vote  for  Electors ;  and  as  Con 
gress  has  fixed  a  day,  the  Tuesday  after  the  first  Monday  in  No 
vember,  the  State  has  no  right  to  vote  for  Electors  on  any  other 
day,  except  that,  in  case  a  State,  having  held  an  election  on  that 
day,  has  failed  to  make  a  choice,  its  Legislature  may  provide 
for  holding  an  election  on  a  subsequent  day,  in  accordance  with 
the  act  of  Congress  approved  on  January  23,  1845.  Doubt 
less  the  inquiry  may  be  made  whether  the  election  was  held  on 
the  day  fixed  by  law. 

Fifth.  The  Constitution  provides  that  Congress  may  deter 
mine  the  day  on  which  the  Electors  in  all  the  States  shall  give 
their  votes  for  President  and  Vice-President.  By  the  act  of 
March  I,  1792,  that  fixed  day  is  the  first  Wednesday  of  Decem 
ber,  —  within  thirty-four  days  of  the  date  of  the  general  elec 
tion.  From  this  it  follows  that  all  the  steps  which  are  necessary 
to  complete  the  appointment  of  the  Electors  must  have  been 
taken  by  the  first  Wednesday  in  December,  when  the  Electors 
are  to  vote  for  President  and  Vice-President.  For  the  purposes 
of  my  argument  I  do  not  follow  the  process  of  electing  a  Presi 
dent  beyond  the  appointment  of  the  Electors. 

To  sum  up  these  limitations  in  brief.  Congress,  in  obedience 
to  the  Constitution,  fixes  the  day  for  choosing  the  Electors,  and 
the  day  when  they  must  vote.  The  Constitution  prescribes  that 
States  only  shall  choose  Electors.  It  prescribes  the  number  of 
Electors  for  each  State,  and  limits  their  qualifications.  These 
are  the  only  limitations  upon  the  authority  of  the  States  in  the 
appointment  of  Electors  of  the  President.  Every  other  act  and 
fact  relating  to  their  appointment  is  placed  as  absolutely  and 
exclusively  in  the  power  of  the  States,  as  it  is  within  their 
power  to  elect  their  governors  or  their  justices  of  the  peace. 
Across  the  line  of  these  limitations  Congress  has  no  more  right 
to  interfere  with  the  States  than  it  has  to  interfere  with  the 
election  of  officers  in  England.  To  speak  more  accurately,  I 
should  say  that  the  power  is  placed  in  the  Legislatures  of  the 
States;  for  if  the  Constitution  of  any  State  were  silent  upon 


448  THE  FLORIDA  RETURNS. 

the  subject,  its  Legislature  is  none  the  less  armed  with  plenary 
authority,  conferred  upon  it  directly  by  the  national  Consti 
tution. 

It  is  insisted  by  those  who  oppose  the  view  I  am  taking,  that, 
though  the  Constitution  authorizes  the  States  to  appoint  Elec 
tors  in  such  manner  as  the  Legislatures  thereof  may  direct, 
yet  the  two  houses  of  Congress,  in  counting  the  Electoral 
votes,  may  inquire  whether  the  State  authorities  proceeded  in 
accordance  with  their  own  laws,  and  may  correct  any  errors 
in  the  process,  or  any  violation  of  the  State  law.  To  this  I 
answer,  that  the  power  to  appoint  includes  the  power  to  do  all 
those  things  necessary  to  complete  the  appointment,  and  to 
determine  and  declare  who  have  been  appointed.  In  pursu 
ance  of  its  authority  to  appoint  Electors,  the  State  may  not 
only  provide  for  holding  a  popular  election  as  the  mode  of 
choosing  them,  but  it  may  also  provide  by  what  means  the 
result  of  such  election  may  be  verified  and  declared ;  and  we 
have  already  seen  that  the  Legislature  of  Florida  has  made  such 
provision.  The  laws  of  that  State  prescribe  all  the  steps,  from 
the  casting  and  counting  of  the  ballots  at  the  several  polling- 
places,  to  the  final  determination  and  declaration  of  the  result 
by  the  board  of  State  canvassers.  If  any  revision  of  that  result 
be  possible,  it  is  the  right  of  the  Legislature  of  Florida  to  pro 
vide  for  it,  not  the  right  of  the  two  houses  of  Congress,  or 
either  of  them. 

The  final  determination  of  the  result  of  the  election  having 
been  declared  by  the  authority  empowered  to  determine  and 
declare  it,  that  act  becomes  the  act  of  the  State ;  and  the  two 
houses  of  Congress  can  no  more  question  such  declaration 
than  they  can  question  the  primary  right  of  appointment  by  the 
State. 

For  these  reasons,  Mr.  President,  I  shall  vote  against  receiv 
ing  the  evidence  offered.  In  conclusion,  I  will  add  that  the 
preservation  of  the  right  of  the  States  under  the  Constitution  to 
appoint  Electors,  and  declare  who  have  been  appointed,  is,  in 
my  judgment,  a  matter  of  much  greater  importance  than  the 
accession  of  any  man  to  the  Presidency. 


THE    LOUISIANA    RETURNS 

IN   THE   ELECTION   OF    1876. 

ARGUMENT   MADE  IN   THE   ELECTORAL  COMMISSION, 

FEBRUARY  16,  1877. 


IN  general,  the  issue  before  the  Electoral  Commission  in  the  case  of 
Louisiana  was  the  same  as  in  the  case  of  Florida.  The  same  state  of 
things  existed,  —  two  electoral  colleges  and  plural  certificates.  Mr.  Gar- 
field  states  the  two  issues  made  before  the  Commission  in  the  second 
paragraph  of  this  argument. 

Technically,  the  cases  were  different  in  several  points ;  but  the  main 
question  still  was  the  admission  of  evidence  for  the  purpose  of  overturn 
ing  the  determination  of  the  State  officers.  It  was  also  claimed,  on  the 
part  of  the  Senators  and  Representatives  objecting  to  Certificate  No.  i, 
and  the  counsel  who  appeared  before  the  Commission  to  support  said 
objectors,  that  an  admitted  vacancy  of  one  in  the  State  returning  board 
vitiated  and  rendered  illegal  the  canvass  and  findings  made  by  said 
board.  By  a  vote  of  eight  to  seven  the  Commission  decided  that  the 
Republican  Electors  were  duly  appointed,  and  that  their  votes  for  Presi 
dent  and  Vice- President  should  be  counted.  The  argument  was  thus 
stated  in  the  report  made  to  the  President  of  the  Senate,  February  16, 
1877:  — 

"  The  brief  ground  of  this  decision  is,  that  it  appears  upon  such  evi 
dence  as  by  the  Constitution  and  the  law  named  in  said  act  of  Congress 
is  competent  and  pertinent  to  the  consideration  of  the  subject,  that  the 
before-mentioned  Electors  appear  to  have  been  lawfully  appointed  such 
Electors  of  President  and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  for  the 
term  beginning  March  4,  A.  D.  1877,  of  the  State  of  Louisiana,  and  that 
they  voted  as  such  at  the  time  and  in  the  manner  provided  for  by  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  the  law ;  and  the  Commission  has 
by  a  majority  of  votes  decided,  and  does  hereby  decide,  that  it  is  not 
competent,  under  the  Constitution  and  the  law  as  it  existed  at  the  date 
of  the  passage  of  said  act,  to  go  into  evidence  alinnde  the  papers  opened 

VOL.  ii.  29 


450  THE  LOUISIANA  RETURNS. 

by  the  President  of  the  Senate  in  the  presence  of  the  two  houses  to 
prove  that  other  persons  than  those  regularly  certified  to  by  the  Gov 
ernor  of  the  State  of  Lousiana,  on  and  according  to  the  determination 
and  declaration  of  their  appointment  by  the  returning  officers  for  elec 
tions  in  the  said  State  prior  to  the  tkne  required  for  the  performance  of 
their  duties,  had  been  appointed  Electors,  or  by  counter  proof  to  show 
that  they  had  not ;  or  that  the  determination  of  the  said  returning  offi 
cers  was  not  in  accordance  with  the  truth  and  the  fact,  the  Commission 
by  a  majority  of  votes  being  of  opinion  that  it  is  not  within  the  jurisdic 
tion  of  the  two  houses  of  Congress  assembled  to  count  the  votes  for 
President  and  Vice-President  to  enter  upon  a  trial  of  such  question. 

"  The  Commission  by  a  majority  of  votes  is  also  of  opinion  that  it  is 
not  competent  to  prove  that  any  of  said  persons  so  appointed  Electors  as 
aforesaid  held  an  office  of  trust  or  profit  under  the  United  States  at  the 
time  when  they  were  appointed,  or  that  they  were  ineligible  under  the 
laws  of  the  State,  or  any  other  matter  offered  to  be  proved  aliunde 
the  said  certificates  and  papers. 

"  The  Commission  is  also  of  opinion,  by  a  majority  of  votes,  that  the 
returning  officers  of  election  who  canvassed  the  votes  at  the  election  for 
Electors  in  Louisiana  were  a  legally  constituted  body,  by  virtue  of  a 
constitutional  law,  and  that  a  vacancy  in  said  body  did  not  vitiate  its 
proceedings."  * 


MR.  PRESIDENT,  — The  rule  of  evidence  adopted  by  the 
Commission  in  reference  to  Florida  was  in  fact  decisive 
of  that  case.  The  same  will  doubtless  be  true  in  the  case  now 
before  us.  The  discussion  has  disclosed  the  fact,  that  the  rule 
of  evidence  and  the  merits  of  the  case  stand  together,  and  I 
shall  proceed  upon  that  understanding  in  my  remarks. 

There  can  be  no  difference  in  principle  between  the  Florida 
and  the  Louisiana  cases,  so  far  as  the  rule  of  evidence  is  con 
cerned,  unless  it  be  that  the  allegation  of  fraud,  and  the  offer  to 
prove  fraud  on  the  part  of  the  returning  board,  brings  this  case 
under  principles  different  from  those  which  the  Commission 
applied  to  the  Florida  certificate.  In  that  case,  the  counsel 
proffered  evidence  to  show  that  the  State  board  of  canvassers 
had  procedcd  upon  an  erroneous  view  of  the  law.  In  this  case, 
they  allege  not  only  error  on  the  part  of  the  returning  board  in 
the  construction  of  the  law  under  which  they  acted,  but  they 
offer  to  prove  actual  fraud. 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Electoral  Commission,  February  16,  1877,  p.  119. 


THE  LOUISIANA   RETURNS.  451 

I  have  listened  with  great  pleasure  to  the  clear  and  able  argu 
ment  of  the  distinguished  Commissioner1  who  has  just  spoken. 
He  has  aided  us  in  the  discussion  by  making  the  strongest  pos 
sible  presentation  of  the  argument  in  favor  of  admitting  the 
evidence.  I  will  follow  the  order  he  has  adopted,  and  will  offer 
some  suggestions  in  reply.  He  holds :  — 

First.  That,  assuming  the  law  of  Louisiana  which  created  the 
returning  board  to  be  constitutional,  the  board  was  itself  not 
lawfully  organized,  because  the  vacancy  was  not  rilled  as  re 
quired  by  the  act  of  November  20,  1872,  which  provides  that 
"  in  case  of  vacancy  by  death,  resignation,  or  otherwise,  by 
either  of  the  board,  the  vacancy  shall  be  filled  by  the  residue  of 
the  board. "^  Authorities  have  been  cited  to  sustain  this  view. 
It  is  no  doubt  true  that,  where  the  law  creates  a  board,  unless 
otherwise  specially  provided,  its  membership  must  be  full  before 
it  can  become  a  legal  board.  But  the  rule  is  otherwise  where  it 
has  once  been  full  and  a  vacancy  has  subsequently  happened. 
In  the  case  before  us,  however,  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  the 
general  doctrine ;  for  we  are  able  to  determine  the  point  in 
controversy  by  the  laws  of  Louisiana,  as  construed  by  the  courts 
of  that  State.  I  remind  the  Commission  of  the  point  so  well 
made  a  few  days  since  by  Mr.  Commissioner  Field,  in  the  Flor 
ida  discussion,  that  the  construction  given  to  a  statute  of  a  State 
by  its  Supreme  Court  is  binding  upon  all  other  States  and  upon 
the  United  States ;  and  that,  for  all  practical  purposes,  the  con 
struction  so  given  becomes  as  much  a  part  of  the  statute  as 
though  the  language  of  the  court  were  incorporated  into  the 
text  of  the  law.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  correctness  of 
this  position. 

In  Bank  of  Hamilton  v.  Dudley,  2  Peters,  492,  Chief  Justice 
Marshall,  delivering  the  opinion  of  the  court,  said :  "  The  judi 
cial  department  of  every  government  is  the  rightful  expositor  of 
its  laws ;  and  emphatically  of  its  supreme  law." 

Again,  in  Elmendorf  v.  Taylor,  10  Wheaton,  159,  the  same 
great  judge  says :  — 

"  This  court  has  uniformly  professed  its  disposition,  in  cases  depending 
on  the  laws  of  a  particular  State,  to  adopt  the  construction  which  the 
courts  of  the  State  have  given  to  those  laws.  This  course  is  founded  on 
the  principle,  supposed  to  be  universally  recognized,  that  the  judicial 
department  of  every  government,  where  such  department  exists,  is  the 

1  Mr.  Thurman. 


452  THE  LOUISIANA  RETURNS. 

appropriate  organ  for  construing  the  legislative  acts  of  the  government. 
....  We  receive  the  construction  given  by  the  courts  of  a  nation  as  the 
true  sense  of  the  law,  and  feel  ourselves  no  more  at  liberty  to  depart 

from  that  construction  than  to  depart  from  the  words  of  the  statute 

On  the  same  principle,  the  construction  given  by  the  courts  of  the  several 
States  to  the  legislative  acts  of  those  States  is  received  as  true,  unless 
they  come  in  conflict  with  the  Constitution,  laws,  or  treaties  of  the  United 
States." 

The  later  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  are  in  accordance 
with  this  doctrine.  (See  12  Wheaton,  167,  168;  6  Peters,  291 ; 
7  Howard,  818;  8  Howard,  558,  559;  11  Howard,  318;  14 
Howard,  504;  2  Black,  599;  I  Wall.  175.) 

Now  apply  this  doctrine  to  the  point  under  consideration. 
The  Supreme  Court  of  Louisiana  has  decided  that  the  returning 
board  of  1872,  created  under  the  act  of  March  16,  1870,  and 
consisting  of  but  four  members  (there  being  one  vacancy),  was 
the  lawful  returning  board  of  the  State.  The  court  also  decided 
that  the  clause  of  the  act  of  1870  requiring  vacancies  to  be  filled, 
which  is  precisely  the  same  as  in  the  act  of  1872,  is  not  manda^ 
tory,  and  a  failure  to  fill  the  vacancy  does  not  render  unlawful 
the  acts  of  a  remaining  quorum.  I  refer  to  the  case  of  Bonner 
v.  Lynch,  25  Louisiana  Annual  Reports,  267,  and  to  the  cases 
therein  cited.  The  court  say :  — 

"  We  decided  in  the  case  of  Kennard  v.  Morgan,  and  again  in  the  case 
of  Hughes  v.  Pipkin,  that  the  board  of  returning  officers  composed  of 
John  Lynch,  George  E.  Bovee,  James  Longstreet,  and  Jacob  Hawkins, 
was  the  legal  returning  board  of  the  State  at  the  late  November  election. 
That  board,  it  appears,  returned  the  defendant,  Lynch,  as  elected  Judge 
of  the  Fourth  District  Court  of  New  Orleans  ;  and  upon  that  return  the 
acting  Governor  issued  a  commission  to  him  according  to  law."  l 

The  court  held  the  returns  of  the  election  by  that  board 
valid ;  and  upon  the  principle  so  long  and  so  well  settled  by 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  we  are  concluded  on 
the  question.  As  a  matter  of  right  and  fairness,  the  board 
ought  to  have  filled  the  vacancy  by  appointing  a  Democrat; 
but  their  failure  to  do  so  did  not  invalidate  their  acts  done  in 
pursuance  of  the  law. 

Second.  The  distinguished  Commissioner  holds  that,  even  if 
the  board  had  been  full,  and  organized  in  accordance  with  the 
law,  yet  the  law  itself,  and  the  board  created  by  it,  are  unconsti- 

1  Page  268. 


THE  LOUISIANA  RETURNS. 


453 


tutional  and  unrepublican.  Here,  again,  I  appeal  for  my  answer 
to  the  authority  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Louisiana,  which  is 
conclusive  upon  this  Commission  and  upon  all  courts.  I  quote 
again  from  Bonner  v.  Lynch,  25  Lousiana  Annual  Reports:  — 

"  The  Legislature  has  seen  proper  to  lodge  the  power  to  decide  who 
has  or  has  not  been  elected,  in  the  returning  board.  It  might  have  con 
ferred  that  power  upon  the  courts,  but  it  did  not.  Whether  the  law  be 
good  or  bad,  it  is  our  duty  to  obey  its  provisions,  and  not  to  legislate. 
....  Having  no  power  to  revise  the  action  of  the  board  of  returning 
officers,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  reasons  or  grounds  upon  which 
they  arrived  at  their  conclusion."  1 

The  court  declares  the  law  valid,  and  that  alone  ends  the 
controversy.  But  I  submit  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  have  re 
course  to  the  Constitution  of  the  State  to  find  authority  for  the 
Legislature  to  prescribe  the  mode  of  appointing  Electors  of 
President  and  Vice-President.  The  national  Constitution  con 
fers  that  power  directly  upon  the  Legislature  of  the  State.  In 
1796,  at  the  time  of  the  Presidential  election,  there  was  no 
provision  in  the  Constitution  or  laws  of  Vermont  for  choosing 
Electors.  But  the  Legislature  of  that  State,  of  its  own  motion, 
appointed  the  Electors,  and  Congress  did  not  question  the  valid 
ity  of  the  transaction.  Whether  the  acts  of  the  returning  board 
were  in  conflict  with  the  Constitution  of  Louisiana  or  not,  they 
were  in  accordance  with  the  mode  of  procedure  prescribed  by 
the  Legislature ;  and  the  national  Constitution  confers  upon  the 
State  Legislature  the  sole  and  exclusive  authority  to  prescribe 
the  mode  of  appointment. 

In  view  of  the  other  clause  of  the  objection,  that  the  law  is 
unrepublican,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  consider  the  cause  which 
led  to  its  enactment 

If  I  were  framing  a  body  of  election  laws  for  Ohio,  I  certainly 
should  not  adopt  the  Louisiana  law  as  my  model.  But  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  the  election  laws  that  prevail  in  most  of  the 
States  could  be  made  effective  to  repress  the  evils  that  have 
afflicted  Louisiana.  No  State  of  the  Union  has  passed  through 
an  experience  so  sad  and  so  calamitous.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
repeat  the  history  of  the  tragic  events  which,  for  several  years, 
threatened  to  dissolve  the  bonds  of  society,  and  to  destroy  both 
liberty  and  law  in  that  State.  It  is  sufficient  for  my  present 
purpose  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Commission  to  Article  103 

1  Page  268. 


454  THE  LOUISIANA  RETURNS. 

of  her  present  Constitution,  adopted  in  1868.  It  is  in  these 
words:  "The  privilege  of  free  suffrage  shall  be  supported  by 
laws  regulating  elections,  and  prohibiting  under  adequate  pen 
alties  all  undue  influence  thereon  from  power,  bribery,  tumult, 
or  other  improper  practice."  I  doubt  if  a  similar  provision  can 
be  found  in  the  Constitution  of  any  other  State  in  the  Union. 
It  is  probable  that  no  other  State  has  found,  by  terrible  expe 
rience,  that  such  a  provision  was  necessary  to  its  peace.  Will 
any  one  say  that  it  is  unrepublican  for  a  State  to  require  its 
Legislature  to  protect  its  voters  against  "  bribery  and  tumult " 
at  elections? 

The  law  under  which  the  returning  board  acted  at  the  late 
election  was  passed  in  pursuance  of  this  provision  of  the  Con 
stitution.  In  its  title  it  is  declared  to  be  "  An  Act  to  regulate 
the  conduct,  and  to  maintain  the  freedom  and  purity  of  elec 
tions  ;  to  prescribe  the  mode  of  making  the  returns  thereof; 
to  provide  for  the  election  of  returning  officers ;  to  define  their 
powers  and  duties ;  and  to  enforce  Article  103  of  the  Consti 
tution."  It  is  a  general  law,  applicable  to  all  elections  held 
within  the  State.  If  its  provisions  are  unrepublican,  then  the 
State  itself  is  unrepublican ;  for  all  the  officers  which  the  State 
has  elected  during  the  last  seven  years  have  been  chosen  and 
declared  elected  in  pursuance  of  this  law,  or  a  law  substantially 
like  it.  We  are  told  that  the  powers  granted  to  the  returning 
board  are  unrepublican.  It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
power  to  canvass,  determine,  and  declare  the  result  of  elections 
must  be  lodged  somewhere ;  that  some  authority  or  authorities 
of  a  State  must  finally  determine  who  have  been  elected. 

In  Ohio,  for  example,  the  duties  of  the  State  board  of  can 
vassers  are  wholly  ministerial.  They  can  do  nothing  but  add 
up  the  returns  sent  from  the  counties,  and  announce  the  result. 
The  actual  work  of  canvassing  and  judging  is  left,  not  to  one 
board,  but  to  four  or  five  thousand  boards,  called  judges  of 
election,  who  sit  behind  the  ballot-boxes,  clothed  with  power 
to  administer  oaths  and  prevent  the  casting  of  unlawful  ballots. 
When  the  polls  are  closed,  each  of  these  local  returning  boards 
proceeds  to  determine  and  declare  the  result.  But  they  do  not 
count,  as  lawful  votes,  "  all  the  ballots  actually  cast."  If  they 
find  two  votes  so  folded  together  that  in  their  judgment  both 
were  cast  by  the  same  voter,  such  ballots  are  thrown  out,  and 
constitute  no  part  of  the  lawful  vote.  If  they  find  a  printed 


THE  LOUISIANA   RETURNS.  455 

name  pasted  over  another  name  on  the  ticket,  they  reject  the 
ballot  for  that  name.  If  they  find,  on  completing  the  count,  that 
the  number  of  ballots  in  the  box  exceeds  the  number  of  names 
on  the  poll  lists,  they  draw  out,  by  lot,  a  number  of  ballots  equal 
to  the  excess,  and  reject  them  wholly  from  the  count.  It  may 
be  that  every  fraudulent  ballot  was  put  in  by  one  political  party, 
and  that  every  vote  drawn  out  and  rejected  by  the  judges  was 
lawfully  cast  by  the  other  party.  But  the  judges  are  ministers 
of  law;  and  they  purge  the  poll  before  declaring  the  result.  It 
is  not  the  count  of  ballots  actually  cast,  but  the  result  as  de 
clared  by  these  judges,  which  constitutes  the  lawful  vote  of  the 
precinct.  The  declarations  made  and  certified  to,  at  the  four 
thousand  ballot-boxes  of  Ohio,  are  forwarded  through  the 
county  officers  to  the  designated  State  officers ;  and  there  re 
mains  only  the  ministerial  work  of  addition  and  declaration. 

In  Louisiana  it  was  found  impossible  to  preserve  peace  and 
order  at  all  the  polls  of  the  State,  if  the  local  officers  of  elec 
tions  were  intrusted  with  the  quasi-judicial  powers  which  are 
exercised  by  such  officers  in  Ohio.  And  hence,  in  the  matter 
of  counting  votes,  the  Louisiana  statute  enjoins  only  ministerial 
duties  upon  the  local  election  officers.  They  must  count  what 
they  find  in  the  ballot-boxes,  and  must  forward  the  result,  to 
gether  with  the  poll  lists,  through  the  parish  officers,  to  the  State 
returning  board.  In  that  board  the  law  has  vested  the  quasi- 
judicial  powers  without  which  no  popular  election  can  be  con 
ducted.  To  that  board  are  delivered  the  unpurged  polls  of  the 
State,  and  the  law  requires  them  "  to  canvass  and  compile  the 
returns  of  the  election,  and  declare  the  names  of  all  persons  and 
officers  who  have  been  duly  and  lawfully  elected." 

In  making  that  canvass  and  compilation,  the  board  must  pro 
ceed  in  the  order  laid  down  in  the  statute :  "  They  shall  com 
pile,  first,  the  statements  from  all  polls  or  voting-places  at  which 
there  shall  have  been  a  fair,  free,  and  peaceable  registration  and 
election."  And  whenever  proof  is  made  to  the  board,  as  re 
quired  by  the  statute,  — 

"  Of  any  riot,  tumult,  acts  of  violence,  intimidation,  armed  disturbance, 
bribery,  or  corrupt  influences,  which  prevented,  or  tended  to  prevent,  a 
fair,  free,  and  peaceable  vote  of  all  qualified  electors  entitled  to  vote  at 
such  poll  or  voting-place,  such  returning  officers  shall  not  canvass,  count, 
or  compile  the  statement  of  votes  from  such  poll  or  voting-place  until 
the  statements  from  all  other  polls  or  voting-places  shall  have  been  can- 


456  THE  LOUISIANA  RETURNS. 

vassed  and  compiled.  The  returning  officers  shall  then  proceed  to  in 
vestigate  the  statements  of  riot,  tumult,  acts  of  violence,  intimidation, 
armed  disturbance,  bribery,  or  corrupt  influences,  at  any  such  poll  or 
voting-place." 

And  for  that  purpose  they  have  power  to  send  for  persons  and 
papers,  and  to  examine  witnesses.  The  statute  then  declares 
that,  — 

"  If,  after  examination,  the  said  returning  officers  shall  be  convinced 
that  said  riot,  tumult,  acts  of  violence,  intimidation,  armed  disturbance, 
bribery,  or  corrupt  influences  did  materially  interfere  with  the  purity  and 
freedom  of  the  election  at  such  poll  or  voting-place,  or  did  prevent  a 
sufficient  number  of  the  qualified  electors  thereat  from  registering  and 
voting  to  materially  change  the  result  of  the  election,  then  the  said  re 
turning  officers  shall  not  canvass  or  compile  the  statement  of  the  votes 
of  such  poll  or  voting-place,  but  shall  exclude  it  from  their  returns." 

Here,  then,  is  a  board  upon  whom  the  State  of  Louisiana  has 
conferred  those  quasi-judicial  powers  which,  in  other  States,  are 
usually  conferred  upon  the  judges  of  election  in  the  several 
voting-precincts.  Who  shall  say  that  it  is  unrepublican  for  a 
State  of  the  Union  to  adopt  the  Louisiana  mode  of  conducting 
elections  rather  than  the  Ohio  mode?  Certainly  each  State  has 
the  right  to  choose  that  method  which  it  deems  best  for  its  own 
protection. 

Third.  The  distinguished  Commissioner  holds  that,  if  the  re 
turning  board,  in  making  their  returns,  exceeded  the  jurisdiction 
conferred  upon  them  by  law,  all  their  acts  in  excess  of  such 
jurisdiction  are  void ;  and  that  this  Commission  may  examine 
and  decide  whether  the  board  did  in  fact  exceed  its  jurisdiction. 
He  does  not  insist,  as  some  have  done,  that  the  two  houses  of 
Congress  have  authority  to  question  the  real  voice  of  a  State  in  de 
claring  who  have  been  chosen  as  Electors ;  but  he  holds  that  they 
may  inquire  whether  the  returning  board  did  utter  the  true  voice 
of  the  State.  His  proposition  is  strongly  put,  but  I  believe  it 
to  be  unsound.  Its  real  meaning  is  obscured  by  the  use  of  the 
word  "jurisdiction."  If,  under  cover  of  inquiring  into  the  juris 
diction  of  the  returning  board,  Congress  may  go  behind  the  de 
termination  of  that  board,  it  follows  that  the  power  of  Congress 
is  not  limited  to  the  counting  of  the  electoral  votes,  but  extends 
to  the  counting  of  the  popular  vote  by  which  the  Electors  them 
selves  were  chosen. 


THE  LOUISIANA   RETURNS.  457 

The  authority  of  the  State  to  appoint  Electors,  as  I  tried  to 
show  in  the  Florida  case,  carries  with  it  the  authority  to  do 
every  act  necessary  to  complete  the  appointment,  and  to  deter 
mine  and  declare  who  have  been  appointed.  It  must  also  carry 
with  it  the  authority  to  decide  whether  the  board  created  for 
the  purpose  of  determining  and  declaring  the  result  has  acted 
within  its  jurisdiction.  If  the  State  has  made  no  complaint  of 
excess  of  jurisdiction  on  the  part  of  the  board,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  how  the  two  houses  of  Congress  can  do  so.  Jurisdiction  in 
general  may  depend  upon  territory,  upon  time,  or  upon  subject 
matter.  In  this  case  the  only  question  relates  to  subject  matter. 
But  the  very  subject  matter  upon  which  the  board  is  authorized 
to  act  is  summed  up  in  a  single  sentence :  "  They  are  to  deter 
mine  what  persons  have  been  elected  according  to  law."  That 
they  did  determine  and  declare.  But  the  learned  Commissioner 
says  they  made  an  unjust  decision ;  that  they  excluded  votes 
which  ought  to  have  been  counted,  and,  in  arriving  at  the  result, 
adopted  methods  which  were  beyond  their  jurisdiction.  But, 
like  every  other  tribunal,  they  were  the  judges  of  their  own 
jurisdiction,  unless  the  law  itself  provides  another  tribunal  to 
determine  that  question. 

It  will  not  do  to  say  that,  because  a  judgment  is  erroneous,  it 
is  therefore  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the  tribunal  that  declares 
it.  Jurisdiction  to  decide  a  case  implies  jurisdiction  to  decide 
it  wrong.  Hundreds  of  cases  before  the  Supreme  Court  have 
turned  on  the  question  of  jurisdiction,  and  that  question  has 
often  been  decided  by  a  divided  court.  The  distinguished 
members  of  this  Commission  who  are  justices  of  that  court  will 
probably  admit  that  that  great  tribunal  may  sometimes  have 
passed  upon  the  merits  of  a  case  of  which  it  was  erroneously 
held  that  they  had  jurisdiction.  But,  as  their  judgments  are 
final,  even  such  erroneous  decision  was  valid. 

Now,  it  is  not  denied  that  the  law  of  Louisiana  confers  upon 
the  returning  board  the  power  "  to  determine  and  declare  "  who 
have  been  appointed  its  Electors.  That  duty  is  their  jurisdic 
tion.  In  the  case  of  the  Governor  and  other  State  officers,  the 
Legislature  may  revise  the  finding  of  the  board ;  but  in  deter 
mining  who  have  been  appointed  Electors,  no  such  power  of 
revision  is  conferred  upon  the  Legislature.  It  follows,  that  the 
determination  of  the  board,  if  not  overruled  by  the  courts  of 
that  State,  is 'the  final  and  conclusive  decree  of  the  State  itself. 


458  THE  LOUISIANA   RETURNS. 

That  decree  we  have  no  power  to  question  or  review.  The 
State  appoints  Electors  and  declares  who  have  been  appointed. 
The  utmost  that  can  be  claimed  for  the  two  houses  of  Congress 
is  the  authority  to  count  the  vote  cast  by  the  Electors.  In  do 
ing  that  they  may  inquire  whether  the  certificates  of  votes  are 
genuine ;  whether  they  are  signed  by  the  recognized  officers 
of  the  State;  in  short,  may  inquire  if  the  certificates  do,  in  fact, 
represent  the  determination  of  the  State.  But  beyond  that 
determination  Congress  cannot  go.  In  issuing  certificates,  the 
Governor  does  not  represent  the  State.  He  acts  at  the  request 
of  Congress.  The  act  of  1792  makes  it  his  duty  to  certify  to 
the  President  of  the  Senate  what  the  State  has  done  in  reference 
to  the  appointment  of  Electors.  If  his  certificate  does  not  testify 
truly,  the  authority  which  counts  may  go  behind  the  certificate 
until  the  actual  declaration  of  the  State  is  found;  but  there  the 
inquiry  ends.  To  go  one  step  further  is  to  invade  the  exclusive 
domain  of  State  authority. 

I  am  no  champion  of  State  sovereignty,  as  that  doctrine  has 
sometimes  been  taught  in  our  political  history.  But  there  are 
rights  so  clearly  and  exclusively  conferred  upon  the  States,  that 
to  invade  them  is  to  break  up  the  solid  foundation  of  our  insti 
tutions  ;  and  if  one  act  can  be  more  sovereign  than  another,  it 
may  be  fairly  said  that  the  most  sovereign  act  which  a  State  of 
this  Union  can  perform  is  the  act  of  choosing  the  men  who  shall 
cast  its  vote  for  President  and  Vice-President.  To  the  theory 
now  urged  upon  us,  that  we  may  review  all  the  process  by 
which  Louisiana  has  given  her  vote  for  President  at  the  late 
election,  I  oppose  this  highest  and  most  unquestionable  right  of 
each  State  of  the  Union. 

It  has  been  said  in  the  course  of  our  deliberations,  that  this 
view  of  the  case  is  technical ;  that  what  is  asked  on  the  other 
side  is  to  ascertain  the  very  right  and  truth  of  this  matter,  — 
to  ascertain  who  was  in  fact  really  voted  for  by  the  people  of 
Louisiana.  I  might  respond  by  saying  that  the  objections  to 
the  finding  of  the  returning  board  are  themselves  in  the  highest 
degree  technical.  We  are  asked  to  go  behind  the  decree  of  the 
returning  board ;  but  for  what  purpose?  For  the  purpose  of 
adding  to  the  count  some  votes  actually  cast,  but  which  were 
rejected  by  the  board  as  unlawful.  We  are  told  that  some  of 
these  polls  were  improperly  rejected;  and  why  improperly? 
Because  it  is  alleged  that,  in  rejecting  these  polls,  certain  tech- 


THE  LOUISIANA   RETURNS.  459 

nical  formalities  were  not  complied  with.  For  example,  it  is 
alleged  that  the  protests  against  the  validity  of  these  rejected 
ballots  were  not  filed  within  forty-eight  hours  after  the  closing 
of  the  ballot-boxes ;  and  if  protests  were  not  filed  within  that 
time,  the  board  could  not  consider  them,  no  matter  how  corrupt 
or  fraudulent  the  ballot  might  be.  They  say  we  stand  upon  a 
technicality ;  but  they  ask  us  to  break  through  one,  only  to  rest 
upon  another. 

If  this  Commission  has  authority  to  go  behind  the  decree  of 
the  returning  board  for  any  purpose,  it  must  have  the  power  to 
go  behind  it  for  all  the  purposes  of  ascertaining  the  truth ;  and 
should  we  enter  upon  such  an  inquiry,  should  we  open  the 
testimony  that  both  sides  will  proffer,  we  shall  find  a  group  of 
allegations  like  this :  that  in  forty-two  parishes  of  Louisiana, 
where  both  sides  agreed  that  there  was  a  fair  and  free  election, 
the  Hayes  Electors  received  an  aggregate  of  6,000  majority ; 
that  in  two  groups  of  parishes  where  the  validity  of  the  returns 
was  contested,  there  existed  such  a  state  of  intimidation  and 
terror,  violence  and  murder,  that  the  voice  of  the  Republican 
party  was  almost  wholly  suppressed ;  that,  for  example,  in  the 
parish  of  East  Feliciana,  which  for  years  had  cast  a  large  Re 
publican  majority,  not  one  Republican  vote  was  cast  at  the  late 
election ;  that  in  many  precincts  within  the  disturbed  districts 
hundreds  of  negroes  were  forced  by  the  coercion  of  threats  and 
intimidation  to  vote  the  Democratic  ticket  against  their  will ; 
and  that  on  the  whole,  within  the  terrorized  districts,  the  voice 
of  the  Republican  voters  was  so  effectually  stifled  as  to  produce 
an  apparent  majority  for  the  Democratic  Electors,  sufficient  to 
overcome  the  6,000  Republican  majority  in  the  undisturbed  por 
tions  of  the  State. 

If  we  take  one  step  behind  the  determination  of  the  State 
authorities,  we  must  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  case.  It  will  not 
do  to  go  just  far  enough  to  find  votes  actually  cast,  and  shut 
our  eyes  to  the  violence  and  outrage  that  put  such  votes  in  the 
boxes.  The  duty  of  purging  the  polls,  and  finding  the  real 
result  of  the  election,  was  by  law  enjoined  upon  the  returning 
board  of  the  State.  That  duty  they  performed.  Whether 
wisely  or  unwisely,  justly  or  unjustly,  in  every  instance,  I  am 
not  prepared  to  say ;  but  I  take  the  liberty  to  remark,  that,  after 
a  careful  study  of  the  history  of  that  election,  and  considering 
the  turbulence  and  irregularities  which  have  long  prevailed  in 


460  THE  LOUISIANA  RETURNS. 

that  State,  I  am  of  the  opinion  that,  on  the  whole,  the  decree 
of  the  returning  board  is  in  accordance  with  substantial  justice. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  thousands  of  voters  were  prevented  from 
the  exercise  of  their  suffrage.  For  that  evil  the  laws  of  Louisi 
ana  provide  no  remedy.  But  they  do  command  the  rejection 
of  polls  that  are  tainted  by  violence,  intimidation,  and  fraud. 
And,  in  doing  that,  the  State  has,  in  part,  repaired  the  wrong 
sought  to  be  committed  upon  her  people. 

Before  concluding,  I  must  refer  to  the  single  feature  in  which 
the  Louisiana  case  is  said  to  differ  from  the  case  of  Florida. 
There  counsel  offered  evidence  to  show  that  the  board  of  can 
vassers  had  acted  upon  an  erroneous  view  of  the  law,  and  had 
made  errors  and  mistakes  in  determining  the  result  of  the  elec 
tion.  Here  they  offer  evidence  to  show  that  the  returning 
board  acted  fraudulently  in  determining  the  result.  On  the 
doctrine  that  fraud  vitiates  everything,  we  are  told  that,  if  fraud 
be  proved  in  this  case,  it  vitiates  the  determination  of  the 
board. 

But  the  allegation  of  fraud  does  not  confer  jurisdiction  of  a 
subject  which  the  law  does  not  authorize  a  tribunal  to  consider. 
The  real  question  is,  whether  the  allegation  of  fraud  in  the  pro 
cesses  of  the  returning  board  confers  upon  the  two  houses  of 
Congress,  or  upon  this  Commission  acting  in  their  stead,  the 
jurisdiction  to  inquire  into  those  processes  and  hear  evidence 
to  prove  fraud.  A  case  decided  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  in  1870,  and  which  has  already  been  referred  to 
by  one  of  the  Commissioners  for  another  purpose,  applies  so 
strikingly  to  the  point  under  consideration  that  I  will  cite  its 
leading  feature.  I  refer  to  the  case  of  Virginia  v.  West  Vir 
ginia,  1 1  Wallace,  39.  In  adjusting  the  boundary  between  the 
States  of  Virginia  and  West  Virginia  an  agreement  was  made 
that  the  counties  of  Jefferson  and  Berkeley  might  become  a 
part  of  West  Virginia,  on  condition  that  a  majority  of  the  votes 
cast  on  that  question  in  the  two  counties  should  be  found  in 
favor  of  annexation.  A  special  statute  regulated  the  mode  of 
conducting  the  election  and  determining  the  question,  and  pro 
vided,  among  other  things,  that  "  The  Governor  of  this  State,  if 
of  the  opinion  that  the  said  vote  has  been  opened  and  held, 
and  the  result  ascertained  and  certified  pursuant  to  law,  shall 
certify  the  result  of  the  same,  under  the  seal  of  this  State,  to 
the  Governor  of  the  said  State  of  West  Virginia." 


THE  LOUISIANA   RETURNS.  461 

The  election  was  held  and  the  result  declared  by  the  Gov 
ernor.  But  subsequently  the  State  of  Virginia  filed  a  bill  in 
chancery  against  West  Virginia  to  recover  the  jurisdiction  of 
those  counties,  upon  the  ground  that  the  vote  was  not  fairly 
taken,  and  that  the  returns  upon  which  the  Governor  issued 
his  certificate  were  false  and  fraudulent.  The  bill  alleged,  in 
terms,  "  that  the  vote  taken  was  not  a  fair  and  full  expression 
of  the  people  of  those  counties,  and  that  the  officers  who  made 
their  returns  to  the  Governor  falsely  and  fraudulently  suggested, 
and  falsely  and  untruly  made  it  to  appear  to  the  Governor  of 
the  Commonwealth,  that  a  large  majority  of  the  votes  was  given 
in  favor  of  annexation ;  and  that  his  determination  of  the  result, 
being  based  upon  such  false  and  fraudulent  returns,  was  illegal 
and  void." 

These  allegations  are  strikingly  analogous  to  the  offers  of 
proof  now  pending  before  this  Commission.  In  reference  to 
the  allegations  of  fraud,  Mr.  Justice  Miller,  delivering  the  opin 
ion  of  the  court,  said :  — 

"  But,  waiving  these  defects  in  the  bill,  we  are  of  opinion  that  the 
action  of  the  Governor  is  conclusive  of  the  vote  as  between  the  States  of 
Virginia  and  West  Virginia.  He  was  in  legal  effect  the  State  of  Virginia  in 
this  matter.  In  addition  to  his  position  as  executive  head  of  the  State, 
the  Legislature  delegated  to  him  all  its  power  in  the  premises.  It  vested 
him  with  large  control  as  to  the  time  of  taking  the  vote,  and  it  made 
his  opinion  of  the  result  the  condition  of  final  action."1 

Even  upon  an  allegation  of  fraud,  the  court  would  not  go 
behind  the  determination  of  the  officer  on  whom  the  State  had 
conferred  the  authority  to  declare  the  result  of  the  election. 
This  is  precisely  the  case  before  us.  The  State  of  Louisiana 
had  empowered  the  returning  board  to  determine  and  declare 
who  had  been  appointed  Electors,  and  having  provided  no  ap 
peal  from  its  decision,  its  action  became  the  final  and  conclu 
sive  determination  of  the  State ;  and  neither  Congress  nor  this 
Commission  has  any  authority  to  inquire  whether  there  was 
fraud  or  error  in  the  process  by  which  the  determination  was 
reached. 

To  sum  up  the  points  already  made:  — 

In  appointing  her  Electors,  the  State  of  Louisiana  has  fol 
lowed  the  method  prescribed  by  her  Legislature.  That  method 
has  been  reviewed  by  her  supreme  judicial  tribunal,  and  has 

i  ii  Wallace,  62,  63. 


462  THE  LOUISIANA  RETURNS. 

been  declared  to  be  in  accordance  with  her  Constitution.  It 
is  also  in  accordance  with  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
Of  all  the  steps  leading  to  that  appointment,  the  State,  through 
her  chosen  organs,  is  the  sole  determining  power.  She  has 
determined  and  declared  that  the  persons  named  in  Certificate 
No.  I  were  duly  and  lawfully  appointed  her  Electors  of  Pres 
ident  and  Vice-President.  Those  persons  met  at  the  time  re 
quired  by  law;  finding  vacancies  in  their  number,  they  filled 
such  vacancies  in  the  manner  prescribed  by  the  law  of  the 
State ;  and,  in  pursuance  of  the  national  Constitution,  they  cast 
their  votes  and  certified  the  same  to  the  President  of  the  Sen 
ate.  These  certificates  have  been  opened  in  the  presence  of  the 
two  houses  of  Congress ;  and  there  remains  but  one  duty  more, 
and  that  is,  to  obey  the  imperial  command  of  the  Constitution, 
which  declares,  "  The  votes  shall  then  be  counted." 

Certificate  No.  2  comes  with  no  semblance  of  authority.  It 
is  signed  by  a  man  who  for  three  years  has  not  even  pretended 
to  be  Governor.  It  is  based  upon  no  finding  or  declaration  of 
any  officer  or  pretended  officer  of  the  State.  It  has  no  validity 
whatever.  It  carries  upon  its  face  all  the  indications  of  worth- 
lessness. 

I  shall  vote  against  receiving  the  proffered  evidence,  and  in 
favor  of  counting  the  votes  reported  in  the  first  certificate. 


A    CENTURY   OF    CONGRESS. 

PAPER    CONTRIBUTED    TO    THE    ATLANTIC     MONTHLY, 

JULY,  1877. 


WE  have  seen  the  close  of  our  centennial  year,  during  which 
societies,  the  States,  and  the  nation  have  been  reviewing 
the  completed  century  and  forecasting  the  character  of  that 
which  has  just  begun.  Our  people  have  been  tracing  the  foot 
prints  of  the  fathers  along  the  many  paths  which  united  to  form 
the  great  highway  whereon  forty-four  millions  of  Americans  are 
now  marching.  If  we  would  profit  by  the  great  lessons  of  this 
memorial  year,  we  must  study  thoughtfully  and  reverently  the 
elements  and  forces  which  have  made  the  republic  what  it  is,  and 
which  will  in  a  great  measure  shape  and  direct  its  future.  No 
study  of  these  themes  which  does  not  include  within  its  range 
a  survey  of  the  history  and  functions  of  the  American  Congress 
can  lead  to  a  just  view  of  our  institutions. 

Indeed,  the  history  of  liberty  and  union  in  this  country,  as 
developed  by  the  men  of  1776  and  maintained  by  their  succes 
sors,  is  inseparably  connected  with  the  history  of  the  national 
legislature.  Nor  can  they  be  separated  in  the  future.  The 
Union  and  the  Congress  must  share  the  same  fate.  They  must 
rise  or  fall  together.  . 

The  germ  of  our  political  institutions,  the  primary  cell  from 
which  they  were  evolved,  was  the  New  England  town ;  and  the 
vital  force,  the  informing  soul,  of  the  town  was  the  town-meeting, 
which  for  all  local  concerns  was  king,  lords,  and  commons  in 
one.  It  was  the  training-school  in  which  our  fathers  learned 
the  science  and  the  art  of  self-government,  the  school  which 
has  made  us  the  most  parliamentary  people  on  the  globe. 

In  what  other  quarter  of  the  world  could  such  a  phenomenon 
have  been  witnessed  as  the  creation  of  the  State  government  of 
California,  in  1849,  when  out  of  the  most  heterogeneous  and  dis 
cordant  elements  a  constitution  and  body  of  laws  were  framed 


464  A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

and  adopted,  which  challenge  comparison  with  those  of  the 
oldest  governments  in  the  world?  This  achievement  was  due 
to  the  law-making  habit  of  Americans.  The  spirit  of  the  town- 
meeting  guided  the  Colonies  in  their  aspirations  for  indepen 
dence,  and  finally  created  the  Union.  The  Congress  of  the 
Union  is  the  most  general  and  comprehensive  expression  of 
this  legislative  habit  of  our  people. 

The  materials  for  tracing  the  origin  of  Congress  are  scanty ; 
but  they  are  sufficient  to  show  the  spirit  which  gave  it  birth. 

The  idea  of  a  congress  on  this  continent  sprang  from  the 
necessity  of  union  among  the  Colonies  for  mutual  protection ; 
and  the  desire  for  union  logically  expressed  itself  in  an  inter 
colonial  representative  assembly.  Every  such  assembly  in 
America  has  been  a  more  or  less  marked  symbol  of  union. 

The  first  decisive  act  of  union  among  the  Colonists  was  the 
convention  of  1690,  at  New  York.  The  revolution  of  1688,  in 
England,  resulted  in  immediate  and  desperate  war  between 
that  country  and  France,  and  soon  involved  the  British  and 
French  Colonies  of  America.  The  French  of  Canada,  aided 
by  the  Northern  Indians,  determined  to  carry  the  flag  of  Louis 
XIV.  down  the  valley  of  the  Hudson,  and  thus  break  in  twain 
the  British  Colonies.  To  meet  this  danger  and  to  retaliate  upon 
France,  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  ever  watchful  of 
the  welfare  of  its  people,  addressed  letters  of  invitation  to  the 
neighboring  Colonies,  asking  them  to  appoint  commissioners  to 
meet  and  consult  for  the  common  defence.  These  commission 
ers  met  in  convention  at  New  York,  on  the  ist  of  May,  1690,  and 
determined  to  raise  an  "  army  "  of  eight  hundred  and  fifty-five 
men,  from  the  five  Colonies  of  New  York,  Massachusetts,  Con 
necticut,  Plymouth,  and  Maryland,  to  repel  the  threatened  inva 
sion  and  to  capture  Canada  in  the  name  of  William  and  Mary.1 
Some  of  our  historians  have  called  this  meeting  of  commission 
ers  "  the  first  American  Congress."  I  find  no  evidence  that 
the  name  "Congress"  was  then  applied  to  that  assembly; 
though  it  is  doubtless  true  that  its  organization  and  mode  of 
procedure  contained  the  germ  of  the  future  Congress. 

The  New  York  convention  called  upon  each  of  the  five  Colo 
nies  for  its  quota  of  troops  for  the  little  army,  and  intrusted 
the  management  of  the  campaign  to  a  board  or  council  of  war, 

1  Documentary  History  of  New  York,  Vol.  II.  p.  239;  and  Bancroft's  History 
of  the  United  States,  Vol.  III.  p.  183. 


A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS.  465 

consisting  of  one  officer  from  each  Colony.  The  several  quotas 
were  proportioned  to  the  population  of  the  several  Colonies, 
while  the  great  and  small  Colonies  had  an  equal  voice  in  direct 
ing  the  expedition.  Here,  in  embryo,  was  the  duplex  system  of 
popular  and  state  representation. 

Sixty-four  years  later,  a  convention  of  commissioners  from 
seven  of  the  Colonies  met  at  Albany  and  called  themselves  a 
"  Congress."  So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover,  this  was 
the  first  American  assembly  which  called  itself  by  that  name. 
It  was  probably  adopted  because  the  convention  bore  some 
resemblance  to  that  species  of  European  international  conven 
tion  which  in  the  language  of  diplomacy  was  called  a  Congress. 
In  order  to  obtain  a  clearer  view  of  this  important  Albany  Con 
gress  of  1754,  we  must  understand  the  events  which  immedi 
ately  preceded  it. 

In  1748,  in  obedience  to  orders  from  England,  the  Governors 
of  the  Northern  Colonies  met  at  Albany  to  conclude  a  treaty  of 
peace  with  the  Six  Nations.  After  this  was  accomplished,  the 
Governors,  sitting  in  secret  council,  united  in  a  complaint  that 
their  salaries  were  not  promptly  and  regularly  paid,  but  that  the 
Colonial  legislatures  insisted  upon  the  right  to  determine,  by 
annual  appropriations,  the  amounts  to  be  paid.  This  petition, 
forwarded  to  the  dissolute  Duke  of  Bedford,  then  at  the  head  of 
the  Colonial  administration,  was  answered  by  a  royal  order 
directing  the  Governors  to  demand  from  the  Colonial  legisla 
tures  the  payment  of  fixed  salaries  for  a  term  of  years,  and  threat 
ening  that,  if  this  were  not  done,  Parliament  would  impose  upon 
the  Colonies  a  direct  tax  for  that  purpose.  Thus  the  first  overt 
act  which  led  to  the  Revolution  was  a  demand  for  higher  sala 
ries  ;  and,  on  the  motion  of  the  Colonial  Governors  at  Albany, 
the  British  Board  of  Trade  opened  the  debate  in  favor  of  Par 
liamentary  supremacy.  Six  years  later  came  the  reply  from 
seven  Colonies  through  the  Albany  Congress  of  1754. 

War  with  France  was  again  imminent.  Her  battalions  had 
descended  the  Ohio,  and  were  threatening  the  northern  frontier. 
The  Colonial  Governors  called  upon  the  legislatures  to  send 
commissioners  to  Albany  to  secure  the  alliance  of  the  Six 
Nations  against  the  French,  and  to  adopt  measures  for  the 
common  defence.  On  the  iQth  of  June,  1754,  twenty-five  com 
missioners  met  at  the  little  village  of  Albany,  and,  following  the 
example  of  the  Governors  who  met  there  six  years  before,  com- 

VOL.    II.  3O 


466  A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

pleted  their  treaty  with  the  Indians,  and  then  opened  the  ques 
tion  of  a  Colonial  union  for  common  defence. 

Foremost  among  the  commissioners  was  Benjamin  Franklin  ; 
and  through  his  voice  and  pen  the  Congress  and  the  Colonies 
replied  to  the  demands  of  England  by  proposing  a  plan  of  union 
to  be  founded  upon  the  rights  of  the  Colonies  as  Englishmen. 
If  his  plan  had  been  adopted,  independence  might  have  been 
delayed  for  half  a  century.  Curiously  enough,  it  was  rejected 
by  the  Colonies  as  having  "  too  much  of  the  prerogative  in 
it,"  and  by  England  as  having  "  too  much  of  the  democratic." 
But  the  talismanic  words  "  Union  "  and  "  Congress  "  had  been 
spoken,  and  from  that  hour  were  never  forgotten.  The  argu 
ment  for  Colonial  rights  had  also  been  stated  in  the  perfect 
style  of  Franklin,  and  was  never  to  be  answered. 

The  second  assembly  which  called  itself  a  Congress  met  at 
New  York,  in  1765.  The  mercantile  policy  of  England,  embod 
ied  in  the  long  series  of  Navigation  Acts,  had  finally  culminated 
in  Lord  Grenville's  Stamp  Act  and  the  general  assertion  of  the 
right  of  Parliament  to  tax  the  Colonies  in  all  cases  whatso 
ever.  Again  Massachusetts  led  the  movement  for  union  and 
resistance.  On  the  6th  of  June,  1765,  her  Legislature  adopted 
a  resolution,  offered  by  James  Otis,  to  call  a  congress  of  dele 
gates  of  the  thirteen  Colonies,  "to  consult  together"  and  "  con 
sider  of  a  united  representation  to  implore  relief."  This  call 
was  answered  by  every  Colony ;  and  on  the  7th  of  October, 
1765,  twenty-seven  delegates  met  at  New  York,  and  elected 
Timothy  Ruggles,  of  Massachusetts,  chairman. 

There  for  the  first  time  James  Otis  saw  John  Dickinson ; 
there  Gadsden  and  Rutledge  sat  beside  Livingston  and  Dyer; 
there  the  brightest  minds  of  America  joined  in  the  discussion  of 
their  common  danger  and  common  rights.  The  session  lasted 
eighteen  days.  Its  deliberations  were  most  solemn  and  momen 
tous.  Loyalty  to  the  Crown  and  a  shrinking  dread  of  opposing 
established  authority  were  met  by  the  fiery  spirit  which  glowed 
in  the  breasts  of  the  boldest  thinkers.  Amidst  the  doubt  and 
hesitation  of  the  hour,  John  Adams  gave  voice  to  the  logic  and 
spirit  of  the  crisis  when  he  said :  "  You  have  rights  antece 
dent  to  all  earthly  government;  rights  that  cannot  be  repealed 
or  restrained  by  human  laws ;  rights  derived  from  the  Great 
Legislator  of  the  Universe."  * 

1  Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  V.  p.  345. 


A    CENTURY   OF  CONGRESS.  467 

Before  adjourning  they  drafted  and  adopted  a  series  of  mas 
terly  addresses  to  the  King,  to  the  Parliament,  to  the  people  of 
England,  and  to  their  brethren  of  the  Colonies.  They  had 
formulated  the  thoughts  of  the  people,  and  given  voice  to  their 
aspirations  for  liberty.  That  Congress  was  indeed  "  the  day- 
star  of  the  Revolution  "  ;  for  though  most  of  its  members  were 
devotedly  loyal  to  the  Crown,  yet,  as  Bancroft  has  said,  some, 
like  James  Otis,  as  they  went  away  from  that  Congress,  "  seemed 
to  hear  the  prophetic  song  of  the  sibyls  chanting  the  spring 
time  of  a  new  empire." 

Nine  more  years  of  supplication  and  neglect,  of  ministerial 
madness  and  stubborn  Colonial  resistance,  bring  us  to  the  early 
autumn  of  17/4,  when  the  Continental  Congress  was  assembling 
at  Philadelphia.  This  time,  the  alarm  had  been  sounded  by 
New  York  that  a  sister  Colony  was  being  strangled  by  the 
heavy  hand  of  a  despotic  ministry.  The  response  was  imme 
diate  and  almost  unanimous.  From  eleven  Colonies  came  the 
foremost  spirits  to  take  counsel  for  the  common  weal.  From 
the  assaulted  Colony  came  Samuel  and  John  Adams,  Cushing, 
and  Paine.  They  set  out  from  Boston  in  August,  escorted  by 
great  numbers  as  far  as  VVatertown.  Their  journey  was  a 
solemn  and  triumphant  march.  The  men  of  Hartford  met 
them  with  pledges  to  "abide  by  the  resolves  which  Congress 
might  adopt,"  and  accompanied  them  to  Middletown  with  car 
nages  and  a  cavalcade.  The  bells  of  New  Haven  welcomed 
them,  and  Roger  Sherman  addressed  them.  After  visiting  the 
grave  of  the  regicide  Bidwell,  they  left  New  Haven  to  be  re 
ceived  at  New  York  by  the  "  Sons  of  Liberty,"  who  attended 
them  across  the  Hudson.  Everywhere  they  were  exhorted  to 
be  true  to  the  honor  of  England  and  the  liberties  of  America.1 
With  them,  from  New  York  and  New  England,  came  Jay  and 
Livingston,  Sherman  and  Deane,  Hopkins  and  Duane.  From 
the  South  came  Washington  and  Henry,  Randolph  and  Lee, 
Gadsden  and  Rutledge,  and  many  others  whose  names  are  now 
familiar;  in  all  fifty-five  men,  sent  by  eleven  Colonies. 

On  Monday,  the  5th  of  September,  1774,  the  delegates  met 
at  Smith's  Tavern,  in  Philadelphia,  and  proceeded  in  a  body  to 
Carpenters'  Hall.  With  what  dignity  and  solemnity  they  began 
their  work!  Choosing  as  chairman  Peyton  Randolph,  of  Vir 
ginia,  and  for  secretary  the  gentle  and  learned  Charles  Thom- 

i  Bancroft,  Vol.  VII.  Chaps.  VIII.,  TX. 


468  A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

son,  the  translator  of  the  Septuagint  and  the  Greek  Testament, 
they  formally  declared  themselves  "  the  Congress,"  and  their 
chairman  "  the  President."  And  how  soon  the  spirit  of  union, 
in  the  presence  of  a  common  danger,  began  to  melt  down  the 
sharp  differences  of  individual  opinion ! 

The  first  psalm  and  prayer  to  which  that  Congress  listened 
sounded  like  a  chapter  of  history  and  prophecy  combined.  The 
psalm  was  not  selected  for  the  occasion,  but  was  a  part  of  the 
regular  Episcopal  service  for  that  day,  the  /th  of  the  month : 
"  Plead  thou  my  cause,  O  Lord,  with  them  that  strive  with  me, 
and  fight  thou  against  them  that  fight  against  me.  Lay  hand 
upon  the  shield  and  buckler,  and  stand  up  to  help  me.  Bring 
forth  the  spear,  and  stop  the  way  against  them  that  persecute 
me.  Say  unto  my  soul,  I  am  thy  salvation.  Let  them  be  con 
founded  and  put  to  shame  that  seek  after  my  soul.  Let  them 
be  turned  back  and  brought  to  confusion  that  imagine  mischief 
for  me.  Let  them  be  as  the  dust  before  the  wind,  and  the 
angel  of  the  Lord  scattering  them."  When  the  minister  had 
ended  the  formal  service,  the  spirit  of  the  occasion  burst  forth 
from  his  lips  in  these  memorable  words  of  prayer:  "  Look 
down  upon  these  American  States  who  have  fled  to  thee  from 
the  rod  of  the  oppressor,  and  have  thrown  themselves  on  thy 
precious  protection,  desiring  to  be  henceforth  dependent  only 
on  thee ;  to  thee  they  have  appealed  for  the  righteousness  of 
their  cause." 

What  would  we  not  give  for  a  complete  record  of  the  pro 
ceedings  of  that  Congress !  It  sat  with  closed  doors,  with  no 
reporters,  and  made  no  official  record  except  the  brief  journal 
of  motions  and  votes.  To  this  journal,  to  private  letters,  and  to 
tradition,  we  are  indebted  for  all  we  know  of  its  proceedings. 
The  delegates  were  clothed  with  no  legislative  powers.  They 
could  only  consult  and  recommend.  But  they  held  higher 
commissions  than  any  which  can  be  embodied  in  formal  cre 
dentials.  It  was  their  high  duty  to  formulate  the  thoughts  and 
express  the  aspirations  of  the  New  World.  Yet  no  organized 
body  of  men  ever  directed  with  more  absolute  sway  the  opin 
ions  and  conduct  of  a  nation. 

As  a  reply  to  the  Boston  Port  Bill,  they  requested  all  mer 
chants  and  traders  not  to  send  to  Great  Britain  for  more  goods 
until  the  sense  of  the  Congress  should  be  taken  on  the  means 
for  preserving  the  liberties  of  America.  And  this  request  was 


A   CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS.  469 

at  once  complied  with.  Knowing  that  the  conduct  of  England 
was  inspired  by  greed,  that  she  had  adopted  the  shop-keepers' 
policy,  Congress  resolved  that,  after  a  given  date,  the  Colonies 
would  not  buy  from  England,  nor  sell  to  her  merchants  any 
commodity  whatever,  unless  before  that  date  the  grievances  of 
America  should  be  redressed.  And  public  sentiment  rigidly 
enforced  the  resolution.  With  more  distinctness  and  solemnity 
than  ever  before,  the  cause  of  the  Colonists,  based  on  the  ina 
lienable  laws  of  nature  and  the  principles  of  the  English  consti 
tution,  was  declared  in  addresses  to  the  King,  to  the  Parliament, 
and  to  the  people  of  America.  Then,  recommending  that  a 
new  Congress  be  called  the  following  spring,  the  Congress  of 
1774  adjourned,  without  day,  on  the  I4th  of  October. 

The  most  striking  fact  connected  with  that  Congress  is  that 
its  resolutions  were  obeyed  as  though  they  had  been  clothed 
with  all  the  sanctions  of  law.  I  doubt  whether  any  law  of 
Congress  or  of  any  State  legislature  has  been  so  fully  obeyed, 
in  letter  and  spirit,  as  were  the  recommendations  of  the  Con 
tinental  Congress  of  1774.  But  its  action  had  been  far  from 
unanimous.  There  were  strong  men,  like  Jay,  who  were  con 
servative  by  nature  and  culture,  and  who  restrained  the  more 
fiery  enthusiasm  of  Henry  and  Adams ;  there  were  timid  mem 
bers,  who  shrank  from  a  contest  with  the  royal  authority ;  and 
there  were  traitors  to  the  cause,  who,  like  Galloway,  secured  a 
seat  that  they  might  more  effectively  serve  the  King  as  a  royal 
spy.  The  resolves  of  that  Congress  and  its  address  to  the 
Colonies  were  potent  educating  forces,  which  prepared  the  peo 
ple  for  a  great  struggle. 

Franklin  was  in  England  at  that  time,  as  the  agent  of  the 
Colonies,  and  presented  the  petitions  of  Congress.  Parliament 
answered  by  declaring  Massachusetts  in  rebellion.  The  King 
replied  by  sending  an  army  to  Boston,  and  by  offering  to 
protect  all  loyal  Americans,  but  ordering  all  others  to  be 
treated  as  traitors  and  rebels. 

On  the  10th  of  May,  1775,  on  the  morning  of  the  capture  of 
Ticonderoga  by  Ethan  Allen,  the  second  Continental  Congress 
assembled  at  Philadelphia.  The  conduct  of  the  King  and  Par 
liament,  and  the  events  at  Boston,  Lexington,  and  Concord, 
had  already  demonstrated  the  impossibility  of  reconciliation. 
It  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  situation  more  perplexing  and  more 
perilous  than  that  which  confronted  the  fifty-four  members  of 


470  A   CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

the  Congress  of  1775.  Their  jurisdiction  and  powers  were 
vague  and  uncertain ;  they  were  in  fact  only  committees  from 
twelve  Colonies,  deputed  to  consult  upon  measures  of  concili 
ation,  but  with  no  means  of  resistance  to  oppression  beyond 
the  voluntary  agreement  to  suspend  importations  from  Great 
Britain.  "  They  formed  no  confederacy.  They  were  not  an 
executive  government.  They  were  not  even  a  legislative  body. 
They  owed  the  use  of  a  hall  for  their  sessions  to  the  courtesy 
of  the  carpenters  of  the  city ;  there  was  not  a  foot  of  land  on 
which  they  had  a  right  to  execute  their  decisions,  and  they 
had  not  one  civil  officer  to  carry  out  their  commands,  nor  the 
power  to  appoint  one."  They  had  no  army,  no  treasury,  no 
authority  to  tax,  no  right  but  to  give  counsel.  "  They  repre 
sented  only  the  unformed  opinion  of  an  unformed  people." 

Yet  that  body  was  to  undertake  the  great  argument  of  reason 
with  the  foremost  statesmen  of  Europe,  and  the  greater  argu 
ment  of  war  with  one  of  the  first  military  powers  of  the  world. 
That  Congress  was  to  consolidate  the  vast  and  varied  interests 
of  a  continent,  express  the  will  and  opinion  of  three  millions 
of  people,  and,  amid  the  wreck  and  chaos  of  ruined  colonial 
governments,  rear  the  solid  superstructure  of  a  great  republic. 
Strange  as  it  now  seems  to  us,  timidity  and  conservatism 
controlled  its  action  for  nearly  a  year.  The  tie  of  affection 
that  bound  the  Colonists  to  England  was  too  strong  to  be 
rudely  severed.  They  deluded  themselves  by  believing  that, 
while  the  Tory  party  was  their  enemy,  England  was  still  their 
friend.  Though  their  petition  had  been  spurned  with  con 
tempt,  yet  they  postponed  the  most  pressing  necessities  of  the 
time  in  order  to  send  a  second  humble  petition  and  await 
an  answer.  After  all,  this  delay  was  wise :  the  slow  process  of 
growth  was  going  forward  and  could  not  be  hastened.  It  was 
necessary  that  all  thoughtful  men  should  see  the  hopelessness 
of  reconciliation.  It  was  necessary  that  the  Dickinsons  and 
the  Jays  should  be  satisfied. 

In  the  mean  time,  Congress  was  not  idle :  it  was  laying  the 
foundation  of  the  structure  soon  to  be  reared.  In  its  pro 
ceedings,  we  find  the  origin  of  many  customs  which  still  pre 
vail.  On  the  1 5th  of  May,  1775,  it  was  ordered  "  that  this 
body  will  to-morrow  resolve  itself  into  a  committee  of  the 
whole,  to  take  into  consideration  the  state  of  America."  This 
formula,  modified  only  by  the  change  of  a  single  word,  still 


A   CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS.  471 

describes  the  act  by  which  each  branch  of  our  Congress  re 
solves  itself  into  "  a  committee  of  the  whole  on  the  state  of 
the  Union."  On  the  3ist  of  May,  1775,  on  motion  of  Dr. 
Franklin,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  provide  for  "  establish 
ing  post  for  conveying  letters  and  intelligence  through  the 
continent."  Franklin  was  made  chairman  of  the  committee, 
and  thus  became,  in  fact,  the  first  postmaster-general  of  the 
United  States.  By  resolution  of  June  14,  1775,  Washington 
was  made  the  chairman  of  our  first  committee  on  military 
affairs.  On  the  27th  of  May,  1775,  it  was  resolved  that  Mr. 
Washington,  Mr.  Schuyler,  Mr.  Mifflin,  Mr.  Deane,  and  Mr. 
Samuel  Adams  be  a  committee  to  consider  of  ways  and  means 
to  supply  these  Colonies  with  ammunition  and  military  stores. 
Thus  Washington  was  the  chairman  of  our  first  committee  of 
ways  and  means. 

While  Congress  was  waiting  for  the  King's  answer  to  their 
second  petition,  Franklin  revived  the  "  plan  of  union  "  which  he 
had  suggested  twenty-one  years  before,  at  the  Albany  Congress, 
and  which  finally,  with  a  few  changes,  became  the  Articles  of 
Confederation. 

It  was  not  until  the  spring  of  1776  that  the  action  of  the 
British  government  destroyed  all  hopes  of  reconciliation ;  and 
when,  at  last,  the  great  Declaration  was  adopted,  both  the  Col 
onies  and  the  Congress  saw  that  their  only  safety  lay  in  the 
boldest  measures.  By  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the 
sovereignty  of  the  Colonies  was  withdrawn  from  the  British 
crown  and  lodged  in  the  Continental  Congress.  No  one  of  the 
Colonies  was  ever  independent  or  sovereign.  NtT-ofte- -Colony 
declared  itself  independent  of  Great  Britain  ;  nor  was  the  decla 
ration  made  by  all  the  Colonies  together  as  Colonies^  U  wa.^, 
made  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  good  people  of 
the  Colonies  as  one  nation.  By  that  act  they  created,  not  inde 
pendent  States,  but  an  independent  nation,  and  named  it  "  The 
United  States  of  America  "  ;  and,  by  the  consent  of  the  people, 
the  sovereignty  of  the  new  nation  was  lodged  in  the  Continental 
Congress.  This  is  true,  not  only  in  point  of  law,  but  in  point 
of  history.  The  Congress  became  the  only  legislative,  execu 
tive,  and  judicial  power  of  the  nation  ;  the  army  became  the  army 
of  the  Continental  Congress.  One  of  its  regiments,  which  was 

1  See  Von  Hoist's  Constitutional  and  Political  History  of  the  United  States, 
1750-1833,  page  6. 


472  A   CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

recruited  from  the  nation  generally,  was  called  "  Congress's 
Own,"  as  a  sort  of  a  reply  to  the  "  King's  Own,"  a  royal  regi 
ment  stationed  at  Boston.  Officers  were  commissioned  by 
Congress,  and  were  sworn  to  obey  its  orders.  The  President 
of  Congress  was  the  chief  executive  officer  of  the  nation.  The 
chairmen  of  committees  were  heads  of  the  executive  depart 
ments.  A  committee  sat  as  judges  in  admiralty  and  prize 
cases.  The  power  of  Congress  was  unlimited  by  any  law  or 
regulation,  except  the  consent  of  the  people  themselves. 

On  the  ist  of  March,  1781,  the  Articles  of  Confederation, 
drafted  by  Congress,  became  the  law  of  the  land.  But  the 
functions  of  Congress  were  so  slightly  changed  that  we  may 
say,  with  almost  literal  truth,  that  the  Continental  Congress 
which  met  on  the  loth  of  May,  1775,  continued  unchanged  in 
its  character,  and  held  an  almost  continuous  session  for  thirteen 
years.  "  History  knows  few  bodies  so  remarkable.  The  Long 
Parliament  of  Charles  I.,  the  French  National  Assembly,  are 
alone  to  be  compared  with  it."  1  Strange  as  it  may  appear,  the 
acts  of  the  Continental  Congress  which  finally  brought  most 
disaster  to  the  people  were  those  which  gave  to  Congress  its 
chief  power.  With  no  authority  to  levy  direct  taxes,  Congress 
had  but  one  resource  for  raising  revenue,  —  forced  loans,  in  the 
form  of  bills  of  credit.  And  so  long  as  the  Continental  money 
maintained  a  reasonable  share  of  credit,  Congress  was  powerful, 
It  was  able  to  pay  its  army,  its  officers,  and  its  agents,  and  thus 
to  tide  over  the  most  difficult  period  of  the  Revolution. 

Great  and  conspicuous  as  were  the  services  of  the  Continental 
Congress,  it  did  not  escape  the  fate  which  has  pursued  its  suc 
cessor.  Jealousy  of  its  power  was  manifested  in  a  thousand 
ways  ;  and  the  epithet  "  King  Cong  "  was  a  byword  of  reproach 
during  the  latter  half  of  the  war.  The  people  could  not  hear 
with  patience  that  the  members  of  Congress  were  living  in  com 
fort  while  the  soldiers  were  starving  and  freezing  at  Valley 
Forge.  They  accused  Congress  of  weakness,  indecision,  and 
delay ;  of  withholding  its  full  confidence  from  Washington ; 
and  finally  of  plotting  to  supersede  him  by  assigning  an  ambi 
tious  rival  to  his  place.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that  some  in 
triguing  members  favored  this  disgraceful  and  treacherous 
design;  but  if  all  had  been  patriots  and  sages,  they  would 
not  have  been  representative  men. 

1  Hildreth's  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  III.  p.  547. 


A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS.  473 

The  Continental  Congress  was  a  migratory  body,  compelled 
sometimes  to  retire  before  the  advance  of  the  British  army,  and 
sometimes  to  escape  the  violence  of  the  mob  who  assaulted  its 
doors  and  demanded  appropriations.  Beginning  its  sessions  in 
Philadelphia,  it  took  refuge  in  Baltimore  before  the  end  of  1776. 
Later,  it  returned  to  Philadelphia ;  went  thence  to  Lancaster ; 
thence  to  York;  then  again  to  Philadelphia;  thence,  in  succes 
sion,  to  Princeton,  to  Annapolis,  and  to  Trenton ;  and  finally 
terminated  its  career  in  the  city  of  New  York. 

The  estimation  in  which  that  Congress  was  held  is  the  best 
gauge  by  which  to  judge  of  the  strength  and  weakness  of  our 
government  under  the  Confederation.  While  the  inspiration  of 
the  war  fired  the  hearts  of  the  people,  Congress  was  powerful ; 
but  when  the  victory  was  won,  and  the  long  arrears  of  debts 
and  claims  came  up  for  payment,  the  power  of  Congress  be 
gan  to  wane.  "  Smitten  with  the  curse  of  poverty,  their  paper 
money  first  depreciating,  and  then  repudiated,  overwhelmed 
with  debts  which  they  could  not  pay,  pensioners  on  the  bounty 
of  France,  insulted  by  mutineers,  scouted  at  by  the  public  cred 
itors,  unable  to  fulfil  the  treaties  they  had  made,  bearded  and 
encroached  upon  by  the  State  authorities,  issuing  fruitless  requi 
sitions  which  they  had  no  power  to  impose,  vainly  begging  for 
additional  authority  which  the  States  refused  to  grant,  thrown 
more  and  more  into  the  shade  by  the  very  contrast  of  former 
power,  the  Continental  Congress  sunk  fast  into  decrepitude  and 
contempt."  1 

During  the  last  three  or  four  years  of  its  existence,  few  men 
of  first-class  abilities  were  willing  to  serve  as  members ;  it  was 
difficult  to  secure  the  attendance  of  those  who  were  elected ; 
and  when  a  quorum  was  obtained,  it  was  impossible,  under  the 
Articles  of  Confederation,  to  accomplish  any  worthy  work. 
Even  after  the  adoption  of  the  new  Constitution,  the  old  Con 
gress  was  so  feeble  that  for  many  months  it  was  doubtful 
whether  it  had  enough  vitality  left  to  pass  the  necessary  ordi 
nance  appointing  the  day  for  the  Presidential  election,  and  the 
day  for  putting  the  new  government  in  motion.  With  a  nar 
rowness  and  selfishness  almost  incredible,  the  old  Congress 
wrangled  and  debated  and  disagreed  for  weeks  and  months 
before  they  could  determine  where  the  new  government  should 
find  its  temporary  seat. 

1  Hildreth's  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  III.  p.  548. 


474  A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

It  is  sad  to  reflect  that  a  body  whose  early  record  was  so 
glorious  should  be  doomed  to  drag  out  a  feeble  existence  for 
many  months,  and  expire  at  last  without  a  sign,  with  not  even 
the  power  to  announce  its  own  dissolution. 

I  have  always  regarded  our  national  Constitution  as  the  most 
remarkable  achievement  in  the  history  of  legislation.  As  the 
weakness  of  the  old  Confederation  became  more  apparent,  the 
power  of  the  separate  States  became  greater,  and  the  difficulties 
of  union  were  correspondingly  increased.  It  needed  all  the 
appreciation  of  common  danger,  springing  from  such  popular 
tumults  as  Shays's  rebellion,  all  the  foreign  complications  that 
grew  out  of  the  weakness  of  the  Confederation,  and,  finally,  all 
the  authority  of  the  fathers  of  the  Revolution,  with  Washington 
at  their  head,  to  frame  the  Constitution,  and  to  secure  its  adop 
tion.  We  are  apt  to  forget  how  near  our  government  was 
brought  to  the  verge  of  chaos,  and  to  forget  by  how  small  a 
vote  the  Constitution  was  adopted  in  many  of  the  States.  Only 
in  Delaware,  New  Jersey,  and  Georgia  was  the  vote  unanimous. 
Even  Massachusetts  gave  it  but  a  majority  of  nineteen  in  a  vote 
of  three  hundred  and  fifty-six.  In  Virginia  it  received  but  ten 
majority,  in  New  Hampshire  eleven,  and  in  Pennsylvania 
twenty-three.  These  votes  disclose  the  strength  of  the  polit 
ical  parties  —  Federal  and  Antifederal  —  to  which  the  Consti 
tution  gave  birth.  This  brings  us  to  the  Congress  of  the 
Constitution,  which  began  its  first  session  at  New  York  on  the 
4th  of  March,  1789. 

Fears  were  entertained  that  some  of  the  States  might  neglect 
or  refuse  to  elect  Senators  and  Representatives.  Three  States 
had  hitherto  refused  to  adopt  the  Constitution.  More  than  a 
month  passed  before  a  quorum  of  the  Senate  and  House  apj 
peared  in  New  York;  but  on  the  6th  of  April,  1789,  a  quorum 
of  both  houses  met  in  joint  session,  and  witnessed  the  opening 
and  counting  by  John  Langdon  of  the  votes  for  President  and 
Vice-President.1  Having  despatched  the  venerable  Charles 
Thomson,  late  secretary  of  the  old  Congress,  to  Mount  Vernon 
to  inform  Washington  of  his  election,  the  new  Congress  ad 
dressed  itself  to  the  .  great  work  required  by  the  Constitution. 
The  three  sessions  of  the  First  Congress  lasted  in  the  aggregate 
five  hundred  and  nineteen  days,  exceeding  by  more  than  fifty 

1  John  Langdon  was  President  of  the  Senate  pro  tern,  for  the  First  Congress 
under  the  Constitution. 


A   CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS.  475 

days  the  sessions  of  any  subsequent  Congress.  It  was  the  high 
duty  of  this  body  to  interpret  the  powers  conferred  upon  it  by 
the  Constitution,  and  to  put  in  motion,  not  only  the  machinery 
of  the  Senate  and  House,  but  the  more  complex  machinery  of 
the  executive  and  judicial  departments. 

It  is  worth  while  to  observe  with  what  largeness  of  compre 
hension  and  minuteness  of  detail  the  members  of  that  Congress 
studied  the  problems  before  them.  While  Washington  was 
making  his  way  from  Mount  Vernon  to  New  York,  they  were 
determining  with  what  ceremonials  he  should  be  received,  and 
with  what  formalities  the  intercourse  between  the  President  and 
the  Congress  should  be  conducted.  A  joint  committee  of  both 
houses  met  him  on  the  Jersey  shore,  in  a  richly  furnished  barge, 
and,  landing  at  the  Battery,  escorted  him  to  the  residence  which 
Congress  had  prepared  and  furnished  for  his  reception.  Then 
came  the  question  of  the  title  by  which  he  should  be  addressed. 
The  Senate  insisted  that  "  a  decent  respect  for  the  opinion  and 
practice  of  civilized  nations  required  a  special  title,"  and  pro 
posed  that  the  President  should  be  addressed  as  "His  Highness, 
the  President  of  the  United  States  of  America,  and  Protector 
of  their  Liberties."  At  the  earnest  remonstrance  of  the  more 
republican  House,  the  Senate  gave  way,  and  finally  agreed  that 
he  should  be  addressed  simply  as  "  the  President  of  the  United 
States." 

It  was  determined  that  the  President  should,  in  person,  deliver 
his  "annual  speech,"  as  it  was  then  called,  to  the  two  houses  in 
joint  session;  and  that  each  house  should  adopt  an  address  in 
reply,  to  be  delivered  to  the  President  at  his  official  residence. 
These  formalities  were  manifestly  borrowed  from  the  practice 
of  the  British  Parliament,  and  were  maintained  until  near  the 
close  of  Jefferson's  administration. 

Communications  from  the  executive  departments  were  also  to 
be  made  to  the  two  houses  by  the  heads  of  those  departments 
in  person.  This  custom  was  unfortunately  swept  away  by  the 
republican  reaction  which  set  in  a  few  years  later. 

Among  questions  of  ceremony  were  also  the  rules  by  which 
the  President  should  regulate  his  social  relations  with  citizens. 
Washington  addressed  a  long  letter  of  inquiry  to  John  Adams, 
and  to  several  other  leading  statesmen  of  that  time,  asking 
their  advice  on  this  subject.  The  inquiry  resulted  in  the  con 
clusion  that  the  President  should  be  under  no  obligation  to 


4/6  A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

make  or  return  any  social  call;  but  regular  days  were  appointed, 
on  which  the  President  should  hold  levees  and  thus  maintain 
social  intercourse  with  his  fellow-citizens.  At  these  assem 
blages  the  President  and  Mrs.  Washington  occupied  an  elevated 
dais,  and  introductory  ceremonies  of  obeisance  and  salutation 
were  carefully  prescribed. 

Not  less  curious,  as  indicating  the  spirit  of  that  time,  were 
the  formalities  of  intercourse  between  the  two  branches  of  Con 
gress.  When  a  communication  was  sent  from  one  house  to  the 
other,  the  messenger  was  required  to  make  his  obeisance  as  he 
entered  the  bar,  a  second  as  he  delivered  his  message  to  the 
presiding  officer,  a  third  after  its  delivery,  and  a  final  obeisance 
as  he  retired  from  the  hall.  It  was  much  debated  whether  the 
members  of  each  house  should  remain  standing  while  a  com 
munication  was  being  delivered  from  the  other.  These  formali 
ties  were  subsequently  much  abridged,  though  traces  of  them 
still  remain. 

In  adopting  its  rules  of  procedure,  the  House  provided, 
among  other  things,  that  the  sergeant-at-arms  should  procure 
a  proper  symbol  of  his  office,  of  such  form  and  device  as  the 
Speaker  should  direct,  to  be  placed  on  the  table  during  the  sit 
ting  of  the  House,  but  under  the  table  when  the  House  is  in 
committee  of  the  whole ;  said  symbol  to  be  borne  by  the  ser 
geant-at-arms  when  executing  the  commands  of  the  House 
during  its  sitting.  This  symbol,  now  called  the  Speaker's  mace, 
modelled  after  the  Roman  fasces,  is  a  bundle  of  ebony  rods, 
fastened  with  silver  bands,  having  at  its  top  a  silver  globe  sur 
mounted  by  a  silver  eagle.  In  the  red-republican  period  of 
Jefferson's  administration,  an  attempt  was  made  to  banish  the 
mace;  and  a  zealous  economist  in  the  House  of  Representatives 
proposed  to  melt  down  and  coin  its  silver,  and  convert  the  pro 
ceeds  into  the  treasury.  The  motion  failed,  however,  and  the 
mace  still  holds  its  place  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Speaker,  when 
the  House  is  in  session. 

The  House  conducted  its  proceedings  with  open  doors ;  but 
the  Senate,  following  the  example  of  the  Continental  Congress, 
held  all  its  sessions  in  secret  until  near  the  end  of  the  second 
Congress.  Since  then,  its  doors  have  been  closed  during  execu 
tive  sessions  only. 

It  is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  the  eminent  men  who  sat  in  the 
first  Congress,  that  they  deliberated  long  and  carefully  before 


A   CENTUKY  OF  CONGRESS.  477 

they  completed  any  work  of  legislation.  They  had  been  in 
session  four  months  when  their  first  bill,  "  relating  to  the  time 
and  manner  of  administering  certain  oaths,"  became  a  law. 
Then  followed  in  quick  succession  the  great  statutes  of  the 
session :  to  provide  a  revenue  to  fill  the  empty  treasury  of  the 
nation ;  to  create  the  department  of  the  treasury,  the  depart 
ment  of  foreign  affairs,  the  department  of  war ;  to  create  an 
army;  to  regulate  commerce;  to  establish  the  government  of 
the  national  territory;  and,  that  monument  of  juridical  learning, 
the  act  to  establish  the  judiciary  of  the  United  States. 

I  must  not  omit  from  this  summary  the  ninth  statute  in  the 
order  of  time,  the  "  act  for  the  establishment  and  support  of  light 
houses,  beacons,  buoys,  and  public  piers."  As  an  example  of 
broad-minded  statesmanship  on  the  subject,  that  statute  stands 
alone  in  the  legislative  history  of  the  last  century.  Everywhere 
else  the  commerce  of  the  ocean  was  annoyed  and  obstructed  by 
unjust  and  vexatious  light-house  charges.  But  our  first  Con 
gress,  in  a  brief  statute  of  four  sections,  provided  "  that  from  the 
1 5th  day  of  August,  1789,  all  the  light-houses,  beacons,  buoys, 
and  public  piers  of  the  United  States  shall  be  maintained  at  the 
expense  of  the  national  treasury."  From  that  date  the  lights 
of  our  coast  have  shone  free  as  the  sunlight  for  all  the  ships  of 
the  world. 

Great  as  were  the  merits  of  that  first  Congress,  it  was  not 
free  from  many  of  the  blemishes  which  have  clouded  the  fame 
of  its  successors.  It  dampens  not  a  little  our  enthusiasm  for 
the  "  superior  virtues  of  the  fathers  "  to  learn  that  Hamilton's 
monument  of  statesmanship,  the  Funding  Bill,  which  gave  life 
to  the  public  credit  and  saved  from  dishonor  the  war  debts  of 
the  States,  was  for  a  time  hopelessly  defeated  by  the  votes  of 
one  section  of  the  Union,  and  was  carried  at  last  by  a  legislative 
bargain,  which  in  the  mildest  slang  of  our  day  would  be  called 
a  "  log-rolling  job."  The  bill  fixing  the  permanent  seat  of  the 
government  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac  was  the  argument 
which  turned  the  scale  and  carried  the  Funding  Bill.  The 
bargain  carried  them  both  through.  Nor  were  demagogues  of 
the  smaller  type  unknown  among  our  fathers.  For  example, 
when  a  joint  resolution  was  pending  in  the  House  of  the  First 
Congress  to  supply  each  member  at  the  public  expense  with 
copies  of  all  the  newspapers  published  in  New  York,  an  amend 
ment  was  offered  to  restrict  the  supply  to  one  paper  for  each 


4;8  A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

member,  the  preamble  declaring  that  this  appropriation  was 
made  "  because  newspapers,  being  highly  beneficial  in  dissemi 
nating  useful  knowledge,  are  deserving  of  public  encouragement 
by  Congress."  That  is,  the  appropriation  was  not  to  be  made 
for  the  benefit  of  members,  but  to  aid  and  encourage  the  press  ! 
The  proprietors  of  our  great  dailies  would  smile  at  this  patriotic 
regard  for  their  prosperity.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  add,  that 
the  original  resolution  passed  without  the  amendment. 

Whatever  opinions  we  may  now  entertain  of  the  Federalists  as 
a  party,  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  we  are  indebted  to  them 
for  the  strong  points  of  the  Constitution,  and  for  the  stable 
government  they  founded  and  strengthened  during  the  admin 
istrations  of  Washington  and  Adams.  Hardly  a  month  passed, 
during  that  period,  in  which  threats  of  disunion  were  not  made 
with  more  or  less  vehemence  and  emphasis.  But  the  founda 
tions  of  national  union  and  prosperity  had  been  so  wisely  and 
deeply  laid,  that  succeeding  revolutions  of  public  opinion  failed 
to  destroy  them. 

With  the  administration  of  Jefferson  came  the  reaction  against 
the  formal  customs  and  stately  manners  of  the  founders.  That 
skilful  and  accomplished  leader  of  men,  who  had  planted  the 
germ  of  secession  in  the  Resolutions  of  1798  and  1799,  brought 
to  his  administration  the  aid  of  those  simple,  democratic  manners 
which  were  so  effectual  in  deepening  the  false  impression  that  the 
preceding  administration  had  sought  to  establish  a  monarchy. 
In  delivering  his  inaugural,  Jefferson  appeared  before  Congress 
in  the  plainest  attire.  Discarding  the  plush  breeches,  silk  stock 
ings,  and  silver  knee-buckles,  he  wore  plain  pantaloons ;  and 
his  republican  admirers  noted  the  fact  that  no  aristocratic  shoe- 
buckles  covered  his  instep,  but  his  plain  American  shoes  were 
fastened  with  honest  leather  strings.  The  carriage  and  footmen, 
with  outriders  in  livery,  disappeared ;  and  the  spectacle  of  the 
President  on  horseback  was  hailed  as  the  certain  sign  of  repub 
lican  equality.  These  changes  were  noted  by  his  admirers  as 
striking  proofs  of  his  democratic  spirit;  but  they  did  not  escape 
the  equally  extravagant  and  absurd  criticism  of  his  enemies. 
Mr.  Goodrich  has  preserved  an  anecdote  which  illustrates  the 
absurdity  of  both  parties.  Near  the  close  of  Jefferson's  term, 
the  Congressional  caucus  had  named  Mr.  Madison  for  Presi 
dent.  The  leading  barber  of  Washington  (who  was  of  course 
a  Federalist),  while  shaving  a  Federalist  Senator,  vehemently 


A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS.  479 

burst  out  in  this  strain :  "  Surely  this  country  is  doomed  to  dis 
grace  and  shame.  What  Presidents  we  might  have,  sir !  Just 
look  at  Daggett  of  Connecticut  and  Stockton  of  New  Jersey ! 
What  queues  they  have  got,  sir !  —  as  big  as  your  wrist,  and 
powdered  every  day,  sir,  like  real  gentlemen  as  they  are.  Such 
men,  sir,  would  confer  dignity  upon  the  chief  magistracy ;  but 
this  little  Jim  Madison,  with  a  queue  no  bigger  than  a  pipe-stem  ! 
Sir,  it  is  enough  to  make  a  man  forswear  his  country !  "  l 

Many  customs  of  that  early  time  have  been  preserved  to  our 
own  day.  In  the  crypt  constructed  under  the  dome  of  the 
Capitol,  as  the  resting-place  for  the  remains  of  Washington,  a 
guard  was  stationed,  and  a  light  was  kept  burning,  for  more 
than  half  a  century.  Indeed,  the  office  of  keeper  of  the  crypt 
was  not  abolished  until  after  the  late  war.  For  the  convenience 
of  one  of  the  early  Speakers  of  the  House,  an  urn  filled  with 
snuff  was  fastened  to  the  Speaker's  desk ;  and  until  last  year,  I 
have  never  known  it  to  be  empty  during  the  sessions  of  the 
House.  The  administration  of  Madison,  notwithstanding  the 
gloomy  prediction  of  the  Federalist  barber,  restored  some  of  the 
earlier  customs.  It  had  been  hinted  that  a  carriage  was  more 
necessary  to  him  than  to  the  widower  Jefferson.  Assisted  by 
his  beautiful  and  accomplished  wife,  he  resumed  the  Presiden 
tial  levees;  and  many  society  people  regretted  that  the  elevated 
dais  was  not  restored,  to  aid  in  setting  off  the  small  stature  of 
Mr.  Madison. 

The  limits  of  this  article  will  not  allow  me  to  notice  the 
changes  of  manners  and  methods  in  Congress  since  the  admin 
istration  of  the  elder  Adams.  Such  a  review  would  bring  before 
us  many  striking  characters  and  many  stirring  scenes.  We 
should  find  the  rage  of  party  spirit  pursuing  Washington  to  his 
voluntary  retreat  at  Mount  Vernon  at  the  close  of  his  term,  and 
denouncing  him  as  the  corrupt  and  wicked  destroyer  of  his 
country.  We  should  find  the  same  spirit  publicly  denouncing 
a  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States  as  a  "  driveller  and  a  fool," 
and  impeaching,  at  the  bar  of  the  Senate,  an  eminent  associate 
justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  for  having  manfully  and  coura 
geously  discharged  the  high  duties  of  his  office  in  defiance  of  the 
party  passions  of  the  hour.  We  should  see  the  pure  and  patri 
otic  Oliver  Wolcott,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  falsely 
charged,  by  a  committee  of  Congress,  with  corruption  in  office, 

1  Recollections  of  a  Lifetime,  Vol.  I.  p.  132  (New  York,  1857). 


48o  A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

and  with  the  monstrous  crime  of  having  set  on  fire  the  public 
buildings  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  the  evidences  of  his 
guilt.  We  should  see  the  two  houses  in  joint  session  witness 
ing  the  opening  of  the  returns  of  the  electoral  colleges,  and  the 
declaration  of  a  tie  vote  between  Thomas  Jefferson  and  Aaron 
Burr;  and  then,  in  the  midst  of  the  fiercest  excitement,  we 
should  see  the  House  of  Representatives  in  continuous  session 
for  seven  days,  several  members  in  the  last  stages  of  illness 
being  brought  in  on  beds  and  attended  by  their  wives,  while 
the  ballotings  went  on  which  resulted  in  Jefferson's  election. 
And  we  should  witness  a  similar  scene,  twenty-four  years  later, 
when  the  election  of  the  younger  Adams  by  the  House  avenged 
in  part  the  wrong  of  his  father. 

In  the  long  line  of  those  who  have  occupied  seats  in  Con 
gress,  we  should  see,  here  and  there,  rising  above  the  undistin 
guished  mass,  the  figures  of  those  great  men  whose  lives  and 
labors  have  made  their  country  illustrious,  and  whose  influence 
upon  its  destiny  will  be  felt  for  ages  to  come.  We  should  see 
that  group  of  great  statesmen  whom  the  last  war  with  England 
brought  to  public  notice,  among  whom  were  Randolph,  Clay, 
Webster,  Calhoun,  Benton,  Wright,  and  Prentiss,  making  their 
era  famous  by  their  statesmanship,  and  creating  and  destroy 
ing  political  parties  by  their  fierce  antagonisms.  We  should 
see  the  folly  and  barbarism  of  the  so-called  code  of  honor  de 
stroying  noble  men  in  the  fatal  meadow  of  Bladensburg.  We 
should  see  the  spirit  of  liberty  awakening  the  conscience  of 
the  nation  to  the  sin  and  danger  of  slavery,  whose  advocates 
had  inherited  and  kept  alive  the  old  anarchic  spirit  of  dis 
union.  We  should  trace  the  progress  of  that  great  struggle 
from  the  days  when  John  Quincy  Adams  stood  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  like  a  lion  at  bay,  defending  the  sacred 
right  of  petition ;  when,  after  his  death,  Joshua  R.  Giddings 
continued  the  good  fight,  standing  at  his  post  for  twenty  years, 
his  white  locks  always  showing  where  the  battle  for  freedom 
raged  most  fiercely;  when  the  small  band  in  Congress,  rein 
forced  by  Hale  and  Sumner,  Wade  and  Chase,  Lovejoy  and 
Stevens,  continued  the  struggle  amid  the  most  turbulent  scenes ; 
when  daggers  were  brandished  and  pistols  were  drawn  in  the 
halls  of  Congress ;  and  later,  when,  one  by  one,  the  Senators  and 
Representatives  of  eleven  States,  breathing  defiance  and  uttering 
maledictions  upon  the  Union,  resigned  their  seats  and  left  the 


A   CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS.  481 

Capitol  to  take  up  arms  against  their  country.  We  should  see 
the  Congress  of  a  people  long  unused  to  war,  when  confronted 
by  a  supreme  danger,  raising,  equipping,  and  supporting  an 
army  greater  than  all  the  armies  of  Napoleon  and  Wellington 
combined;  meeting  the  most  difficult  questions  of  international 
and  constitutional  law;  and,  by  new  forms  of  taxation,  rais 
ing  a  revenue  which,  in  one  year  of  the  war,  amounted  to  more 
than  all  the  national  taxes  collected  during  the  first  half-cen 
tury  of  the  government.  We  should  see  them  so  amending  the 
Constitution  as  to  strengthen  the  safeguards  of  the  Union  and 
insure  universal  liberty  and  universal  suffrage,  and  restoring  to 
their  places  in  the  Union  the  eleven  States  whose  governments, 
founded  on  secession,  fell  into  instant  ruin  when  the  Rebellion 
collapsed ;  and  we  should  see  them,  even  when  the  danger  of 
destruction  seemed  greatest,  voting  the  largest  sum  of  money 
ever  appropriated  by  one  act  to  unite  the  East  and  the  West, 
the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific  coasts,  by  a  material  bond  of  so 
cial,  commercial,  and  political  union. 

In  this  review  we  should  see  courage  and  cowardice,  patriot 
ism  and  selfishness,  far-sighted  wisdom  and  short-sighted  folly, 
joining  in  a  struggle  always  desperate  and  sometimes  doubtful ; 
and  yet,  out  of  all  this  turmoil  and  fierce  strife,  we  should  see 
the  Union  slowly  but  surely  rising,  with  greater  strength  and 
brighter  lustre,  to  a  higher  place  among  the  nations. 

Congress  has  always  been,  and  must  always  be,  the  theatre  of 
contending  opinions ;  the  forum  where  the  opposing  forces  of 
political  philosophy  meet  to  measure  their  strength, — where  the 
public  good  must  meet  the  assaults  of  local  and  sectional  inter 
ests  ;  in  a  word,  the  appointed  place  where  the  nation  seeks  to 
utter  its  thought  and  register  its  will. 

This  brings  me  to  consider  the  present  relations  of  Congress 
to  the  other  great  departments  of  the  government,  and  to  the 
people.  The  limits  of  this  article  will  permit  no  more  than  a 
glance  at  a  few  principal  heads  of  inquiry. 

In  the  main,  the  balance  of  powers  so  admirably  adjusted 
and  distributed  among  the  three  great  departments  of  the  gov 
ernment  has  been  safely  preserved.  It  was  the  purpose  of  our 
fathers  to  lodge  absolute  power  nowhere ;  to  leave  each  de 
partment  independent  within  its  own  sphere,  yet  in  every  case 
responsible  for  the  exercise  of  its  discretion.  But  some  dan 
gerous  innovations  have  been  made. 

VOL.  ii.  31 


482  A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

And,  first,  the  appointing  power  of  the  President  has  been 
seriously  encroached  upon  by  Congress,  or  rather  by  the  mem 
bers  of  Congress.  Curiously  enough,  this  encroachment  origi 
nated  in  the  act  of  the  chief  Executive  himself.  The  fierce 
popular  hatred  of  the  Federal  party,  which  resulted  in  the  ele 
vation  of  Jefferson  to  the  Presidency,  led  that  officer  to  set  the 
first  example  of  removing  men  from  office  on  account  of  polit 
ical  opinions.  For  political  causes  alone,  he  removed  a  con 
siderable  number  of  officers  who  had  recently  been  appointed 
by  President  Adams,  and  thus  set  the  pernicious  example.  His 
immediate  successors  made  only  a  few  removals  for  political 
reasons.  But  Jackson  made  his  political  opponents  who  were 
in  office  feel  the  full  weight  of  his  executive  hand.  From  that 
time  forward,  the  civil  offices  of  the  government  became  the 
prizes  for  which  political  parties  strove ;  and,  forty  years  ago, 
the  corrupting  doctrine  that  "to  the  victors  belong  the  spoils" 
was  shamelessly  announced  as  an  article  of  political  faith  and 
practice.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  state  with  adequate  force  the 
noxious  influence  of  this  doctrine.  It  was  bad  enough  when 
the  federal  officers  numbered  no  more  than  eight  or  ten  thou 
sand  ;  but  now,  when  the  growth  of  the  country,  and  the  great 
increase  in  the  number  of  public  offices  occasioned  by  the  late 
war,  have  swelled  the  civil  list  to  more  than  eighty  thousand, 
and  when  to  the  ordinary  motives  for  political  strife  this  vast 
patronage  is  offered  as  a  reward  to  the  victorious  party,  the 
magnitude  of  the  evil  can  hardly  be  measured.  The  public 
mind  has,  by  degrees,  drifted  into  an  acceptance  of  this  doc 
trine  ;  and  thus  an  election  has  become  a  fierce,  selfish  struggle 
between  the  "  ins "  and  the  "  outs,"  the  one  striving  to  keep 
and  the  other  to  gain  the  prizes  of  office.  It  is  not  possible 
for  any  President  to  select,  with  any  degree  of  intelligence,  so 
vast  an  army  of  office-holders  without  the  aid  of  men  who  are 
acquainted  with  the  people  of  the  various  sections  of  the  coun 
try.  And  thus  it  has  become  the  habit  of  Presidents  to  make 
most  of  their  appointments  on  the  recommendation  of  members 
of  Congress.  During  the  last  twenty-five  years  it  has  been  un 
derstood,  by  the  Congress  and  the  people,  that  offices  are  to  be 
obtained  by  the  aid  of  Senators  and  Representatives,  who  thus 
become  the  dispensers,  sometimes  the  brokers,  of  patronage. 
The  members  of  State  legislatures  who  choose  a  Senator,  and 
the  district  electors  who  choose  a  Representative,  look  to  the 


A  CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS.  483 

man  of  their  choice  for  appointments  to  office.  Thus,  from  the 
President  downward  to  the  electors  themselves,  through  all  the 
grades  of  official  authority,  civil  office  becomes  a  vast  corrupting 
power,  to  be  used  in  running  the  machine  of  party  politics. 

This  evil  has  been  greatly  aggravated  by  the  passage  of  the 
Tenure  of  Office  Act,  of  1867,  whose  object  was  to  restrain 
President  Johnson  from  making  removals  for  political  cause. 
But  it  has  virtually  resulted  in  the  usurpation  by  the  Senate  of 
a  large  share  of  the  appointing  power.  The  President  can  re 
move  no  officer  without  the  consent  of  the  Senate ;  and  such 
consent  is  not  often  given,  unless  the  appointment  of  the  suc 
cessor  nominated  to  fill  the  proposed  vacancy  is  agreeable  to 
the  Senator  in  whose  State  the  appointee  resides.  Thus  it  has 
happened  that  a  policy,  inaugurated  by  an  early  President,  has 
resulted  in  seriously  crippling  the  just  powers  of  the  Executive, 
and  has  placed  in  the  hands  of  Senators  and  Representatives  a 
power  most  corrupting  and  dangerous. 

Not  the  least  serious  evil  resulting  from  this  invasion  of  the 
executive  functions  by  members  of  Congress  is  the  fact  that  it 
greatly  impairs  their  own  usefulness  as  legislators.  One  third 
of  the  working  hours  of  Senators  and  Representatives  is  hardly 
sufficient  to  meet  the  demands  made  upon  them  in  reference  to 
appointments  to  office.  The  spirit  of  that  clause  of  the  Consti 
tution  which  shields  them  from  arrest  "  during  their  attendance 
at  the  session  of  their  respective  houses,  and  in  going  to  or 
returning  from  the  same,"  should  also  shield  them  from  being 
arrested  from  their  legislative  work,  morning,  noon,  and  night, 
by  office-seekers.  To  sum  up  in  a  word,  the  present  system 
invades  the  independence  of  the  Executive,  and  makes  him  less 
responsible  for  the  character  of  his  appointments ;  it  impairs 
the  efficiency  of  the  legislator  by  diverting  him  from  his  proper 
sphere  of  duty,  and  involving  him  in  the  intrigues  of  aspirants 
for  office ;  it  degrades  the  civil  service  itself  by  destroying  the 
personal  independence  of  those  who  are  appointed ;  it  repels 
from  the  service  those  high  and  manly  qualities  which  are  so 
necessary  to  a  pure  and  efficient  administration ;  and  finally,  it 
debauches  the  public  mind  by  holding  up  public  office  as  the 
reward  of  mere  party  zeal. 

To  reform  this  service  is  one  of  the  highest  and  most  im 
perative  duties  of  statesmanship.  This  reform  cannot  be  ac 
complished  without  a  complete  divorce  between  Congress  and 


484  A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

the  Executive  in  the  matter  of  appointments.  It  will  be  a 
proud  day  when  an  administration  Senator  or  Representative, 
who  is  in  good  standing  in  his  party,  can  say,  as  Thomas 
Hughes  said  during  his  recent  visit  to  this  country,  that, 
though  he  was  on  the  most  intimate  terms  with  the  members 
of  the  English  administration,  yet  it  was  not  in  his  power  to 
secure  the  removal  of  the  humblest  clerk  in  the  civil  service 
of  the  government. 

This  is  not  the  occasion  to  discuss  the  recent  enlargement  of 
the  jurisdiction  of  Congress  in  reference  to  the  election  of  a 
President  and  Vice-President  by  the  States.  But  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  the  Electoral  Bill l  has  opened  a  wide  and  dan 
gerous  field  for  Congressional  action.  Unless  the  boundaries 
of  its  power  shall  be  restricted  by  a  new  amendment  of  the 
Constitution,  we  have  seen  the  last  of  our  elections  of  Presi 
dent  on  the  old  plan.  The  power  to  decide  who  has  been 
elected  may  be  so  used  as  to  exceed  the  power  of  electing. 

I  have  long  believed  that  the  official  relations  between  the 
Executive  and  Congress  should  be  more  open  and  direct. 
They  are  now  conducted  by  correspondence  with  the  pre 
siding  officers  of  the  two  Houses,  by  consultation  with  com 
mittees,  or  by  private  interviews  with  individual  members. 
This  frequently  leads  to  misunderstandings,  and  may  lead  to 
corrupt  combinations.  It  would  be  far  better  for  both  de 
partments  if  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  permitted  to  sit 
in  Congress  and  participate  in  the  debates  on  measures  re 
lating  to  their  several  departments,  —  but,  of  course,  without 
a  vote.  This  would  tend  to  secure  the  ablest  men  for  the 
chief  executive  offices ;  it  would  bring  the  policy  of  the  ad 
ministration  into  the  fullest  publicity  by  giving  both  parties 
ample  opportunity  for  criticism  and  defence. 

As  a  result  of  the  great  growth  of  the  country  and  of  the 
new  legislation  arising  from  the  late  war,  Congress  is  greatly 
overloaded  with  work.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  business  which 
now  annually  claims  the  attention  of  Congress  is  tenfold  more 
complex  and  burdensome  than  it  was  forty  years  ago.  For 
example :  the  twelve  annual  appropriation  bills,  with  their  nu 
merous  details,  now  consume  two  thirds  of  each  short  session 
of  the  House.  Forty  years  ago,  when  the  appropriations  were 
made  more  in  block,  one  week  was  sufficient  for  the  work. 

1  See  Speech  on  Counting  the  Electoral  Vote,  January  25,  1877. 


A    CENTUR  Y  OF  CONGRESS.  485 

The  vast  extent  of  our  country,  the  increasing  number  of 
States  and  Territories,  the  legislation  necessary  to  regulate  our 
mineral  lands,  to  manage  our  complex  systems  of  internal 
revenue,  banking,  currency,  and  expenditure,  have  so  increased 
the  work  of  Congress  that  no  one  man  can  even  read  the  bills 
and  the  official  reports  relating  to  current  legislation,  much  less 
qualify  himself  for  intelligent  action  upon  them.  As  a  neces 
sary  consequence,  the  real  work  of  legislation  is  done  by  the 
committees ;  and  their  work  must  be  accepted  or  rejected 
without  full  knowledge  of  its  merits.  This  fact  alone  renders 
leadership  in  Congress,  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word,  impos 
sible.  For  many  years  we  have  had  the  leadership  of  com 
mittees  and  chairmen  of  committees ;  but  no  one  man  can 
any  more  be  the  leader  of  all  the  legislation  of  the  Senate  or 
of  the  House,  than  one  lawyer  or  one  physician  can  now  be 
foremost  in  all  the  departments  of  law  or  medicine.  The  evils 
of  loose  legislation  resulting  from  this  situation  must  increase 
rather  than  diminish,  until  a  remedy  is  provided. 

John  Stuart  Mill  held  that  a  numerous  popular  assembly  is 
radically  unfit  to  make  good  laws,  but  is  the  best  possible  means 
of  getting  good  laws  made.  He  suggested,  as  a  permanent  part 
of  the  constitution  of  a  free  country,  a  legislative  commission, 
composed  of  a  few  trained  men,  to  draft  such  laws  as  the  legis 
lature,  by  general  resolutions,  shall  direct,  which  draft  shall  be 
adopted  by  the  legislature,  without  change,  or  returned  to  the 
commission  to  be  amended.1  Whatever  may  be  thought  of 
Mr.  Mill's  suggestion,  it  is  clear  that  some  plan  must  be  adopted 
to  relieve  Congress  from  the  infinite  details  of  legislation,  and 
to  preserve  harmony  and  coherence  in  our  laws. 

Another  change  observable  in  Congress,  as  well  as  in  the  legis 
latures  of  other  countries,  is  the  decline  of  oratory.  The  press 
is  rendering  the  orator  obsolete.  Statistics  now  furnish  the 
materials  upon  which  the  legislator  depends;  and  a  column  of 
figures  will  often  demolish  a  dozen  pages  of  eloquent  rhetoric. 

Just  now,  too,  the  day  of  sentimental  politics  is  passing  away, 
and  the  work  of  Congress  is  more  nearly  allied  to  the  business 
interests  of  the  country  and  to  "  the  dismal  science,"  as  political 
economy  is  called  by  the  "  practical  men "  of  our  time.  The 
legislation  of  Congress  comes  much  nearer  to  the  daily  life  of 
the  people  than  ever  before.  Twenty  years  ago,  the  presence 

1  Autobiography,  pp.  264,  265  (New  York,  1873). 


436  A   CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

of  the  national  government  was  not  felt  by  one  citizen  in  a 
hundred.  Except  in  paying  his  postage  and  receiving  his  mail, 
the  citizen  of  the  interior  rarely  came  in  contact  with  the  na 
tional  authority.  Now,  he  meets  it  in  a  thousand  ways.  For 
merly  the  legislation  of  Congress  referred  chiefly  to  our  foreign 
relations,  to  indirect  taxes,  to  the  government  of  the  army,  the 
navy,  and  the  Territories.  Now,  a  vote  in  Congress  may,  any 
day,  seriously  derange  the  business  affairs  of  every  citizen. 

And  this  leads  me  to  say  that  now,  more  than  ever  before, 
the  people  are  responsible  for  the  character  of  their  Congress. 
If  that  body  be  ignorant,  reckless,  and  corrupt,  it  is  because  the 
people  tolerate  ignorance,  recklessness,  and  corruption.  If  it 
be  intelligent,  brave,  and  pure,  it  is  because  the  people  demand 
those  high  qualities  to  represent  them  in  the  national  legislature. 
Congress  lives  in  the  blaze  of  "  that  fierce  light  which  beats 
against  the  throne."  The  telegraph  and  the  press  will  to-morrow 
morning  announce  at  a  million  breakfast-tables  what  has  been 
said  and  done  in  Congress  to-day.  Now,  as  always,  Congress 
represents  the  prevailing  opinions  and  political  aspirations  of 
the  people.  The  wildest  delusions  of  paper  money,  the  crudest 
theories  of  taxation,  the  passions  and  prejudices  that  find  ex 
pression  in  the  Senate  and  House,  were  first  believed  and  dis 
cussed  at  the  firesides  of  the  people,  on  the  corners  of  the 
streets,  and  in  the  caucuses  and  conventions  of  political  parties. 

The  most  alarming  feature  of  our  situation  is  the  fact  that  so 
many  citizens  of  high  character  and  solid  judgment  pay  but 
little  attention  to  the  sources  of  political  power,  to  the  selection 
of  those  who  shall  make  their  laws.  The  clergy,  the  faculties 
of  colleges,  and  many  of  the  leading  business  men  of  the  com 
munity,  never  attend  the  township  caucus,  the  city  primary,  or 
the  county  convention ;  but  they  allow  the  less  intelligent  and 
the  more  selfish  and  corrupt  members  of  the  community  to 
"  make  the  slates  "  and  "  run  the  machine  "  of  politics.  They 
wait  until  the  "  machine  "  has  done  its  work,  and  then,  in  sur 
prise  and  horror  at  the  ignorance  and  corruption  in  public  office, 
sigh  for  the  return  of  that  mythical  period  called  the  "  better 
and  purer  days  of  the  republic."  It  is  precisely  this  neglect  of 
the  first  steps  in  our  political  processes  that  has  made  possible 
the  worst  evils  of  our  system.  Corrupt  and  incompetent  presi 
dents,  judges,  and  legislators  can  be  removed ;  but  when  the 
fountains  of  political  power  are  corrupted,  when  voters  them- 


A   CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS.  487 

selves  become  venal  and  elections  fraudulent,  there  is  no  remedy 
except  by  awakening  the  public  conscience  and  bringing  to  bear 
upon  the  subject  the  power  of  public  opinion  and  the  penalties 
of  the  law.  The  practice  of  buying  and  selling  votes  at  our 
popular  elections  has  already  gained  a  foothold,  though  it  has 
not  gone  so  far  as  in  England.  It  is  mentioned  in  the  recent 
biography  of  Lord  Macaulay,  as  a  boast,  that  his  four  elections 
to  the  House  of  Commons  cost  him  but  five  hundred  pounds.1 
A  hundred  years  ago,  bribery  of  electors  was  far  more  prevalent 
and  shameless  in  England  than  it  now  is. 

There  have  always  been,  and  always  will  be,  bad  men  in  all 
human  pursuits.  There  was  a  Judas  in  the  college  of  the  Apos 
tles,  an  Arnold  in  the  army  of  the  Revolution,  a  Burr  in  our 
early  politics ;  and  they  have  had  successors  in  all  departments 
of  modern  life.  But  it  is  demonstrable,  as  a  matter  of  history, 
that  on  the  whole  the  standard  of  public  and  private  morals  is 
higher  in  the  United  States  at  the  present  time  than  ever  be 
fore  ;  that  men  in  public  and  private  stations  are  held  to  a  more 
rigid  accountability,  and  that  the  average  moral  tone  of  Con 
gress  is  higher  to-day  than  at  any  previous  period  of  our  his 
tory.2  It  is  certainly  true  that  our  late  war  disturbed  the 
established  order  of  society,  awakened  a  reckless  spirit  of  ad 
venture  and  speculation,  and  greatly  multiplied  the  opportuni 
ties,  and  increased  the  temptations  to  evil.  The  disorganization 
of  the  Southern  States,  and  the  temporary  disfranchisement  of 
its  leading  citizens,  threw  a  portion  of  their  representation  in 
Congress,  for  a  short  time,  into  the  hands  of  political  adven 
turers,  many  of  whom  used  their  brief  hold  on  power  for 
personal  ends,  and  thus  brought  disgrace  upon  the  national 
legislature.  And  it  is  also  true  that  the  enlarged  sphere  of 
legislation  so  mingled  public  duties  and  private  interests  that 
it  was  not  easy  to  draw  the  line  between  them.  From  that 
cause  also  the  reputation,  and  in  some  cases  the  character,  of 
public  men  suffered  eclipse.  But  the  earnestness  and  vigor 

1  Life  and  Letters,  Vol.  II.  p.  95  (London,  1880). 

2  On  this  point  I  beg  to  refer  the  reader  to  a  speech  delivered  by  Hon.  George 
F.  Hoar,  in  the   House   of  Representatives,  August  9,  1876,  in  which  that  distin 
guished  gentleman  said,  "  I  believe  there  is  absolutely  less  of  corruption,  and  less 
of  maladministration,  and  less  of  vice  and  evil  in  public  life,  than  there  was  in  the 
sixteen  years  which  covered  the  administration  of  Washington,  the  administration 
of  John  Adams,  and  the  first  term  of  Jefferson."     This  assertion  is  maintained  by 
numerous  citations  in  the  speech  of  unquestioned  facts. 


488  A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS. 

with  which  wrong-doing  is  everywhere  punished  is  a  strong 
guaranty  of  the  purity  of  those  who  may  hold  posts  of  au 
thority  and  honor.  Indeed,  there  is  now  danger  in  the  oppo 
site  direction ;  namely,  that  criticism  may  degenerate  into  mere 
slander,  and  put  an  end  to  its  power  for  good  by  being  used  as 
a  means  to  assassinate  the  reputation  and  destroy  the  useful 
ness  of  honorable  men.  It  is  as  much  the  duty  of  all  good  men 
to  protect  and  defend  the  reputation  of  worthy  public  servants 
as  to  detect  and  punish  public  rascals. 

In  a  word,  our  national  safety  demands  that  the  fountains  of 
political  power  shall  be  made  pure  by  intelligence,  and  kept 
pure  by  vigilance ;  that  the  best  citizens  shall  take  heed  to  the 
selection  and  election  of  the  worthiest  and  most  intelligent 
among  them  to  hold  seats  in  the  national  legislature ;  and  that, 
when  the  choice  has  been  made,  the  continuance  of  the  repre 
sentative  shall  depend  upon  his  faithfulness,  his  ability,  and  his 
willingness  to  work. 

In  Congress,  as  everywhere  else,  careful  study — thorough, 
earnest  work  —  is  the  only  sure  passport  to  usefulness  and  dis 
tinction.  From  its  first  meeting  in  17/4  to  its  last  in  1788,  three 
hundred  and  fifty-four  men  sat  in  the  Continental  Congress.  Of 
these,  one  hundred  and  eighteen  —  one  third  of  the  whole  num 
ber —  were  college  graduates.  That  third  embraced  much  the 
larger  number  of  those  whose  names  have  come  down  to  us  as 
the  great  founders  of  the  republic.  Since  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution  of  1787,  six  thousand  two  hundred  and  eighteen 
men  have  held  seats  in  Congress ;  and  among  them  all,  thor 
ough  culture  and  earnest,  arduous  work  have  been  the  leading 
characteristics  of  those  whose  service  has  been  most  useful,  and 
whose  fame  has  been  most  enduring.  Galloway  wrote  of  Sam 
uel  Adams,  "  He  eats  little,  drinks  little,  sleeps  little,  and  thinks 
much,  and  is  most  decisive  and  indefatigable  in  the  pursuit  of 
his  objects."  This  description  can  still  be  fittingly  applied  to 
all  men  who  deserve  and  achieve  success  anywhere,  but  espe 
cially  in  public  life.  As  a  recent  writer  has  said,  in  discussing 
the  effect  of  Prussian  culture,  so  we  may  say  of  culture  in  Con 
gress  :  "  The  lesson  is,  that,  whether  you  want  him  for  war  or 
peace,  there  is  no  way  in  which  you  can  get  so  much  out  of  a 
man  as  by  training  him,  not  in  pieces,  but  the  whole  of  him ; 
and  that  the  trained  men,  other  things  being  equal,  are  pretty 
sure,  in  the  long  run,  to  be  masters  of  the  world." 


A    CENTURY  OF  CONGRESS.  489 

Congress  must  always  be  the  exponent  of  the  political  char 
acter  and  culture  of  the  people;  and  if  the  next  centennial 
does  not  find  us  a  great  nation,  with  a  great  and  worthy  Con 
gress,  it  will  be  because  those  who  represent  the  enterprise,  the 
culture,  and  the  morality  of  the  nation  do  not  aid  in  controlling 
the  political  forces  which  are  employed  to  select  the  men  who 
shall  occupy  the  great  places  of  trust  and  power. 


PROPOSED  REPEAL  OF  THE   RESUMPTION 

LAW. 

SPEECH  DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 

NOVEMBER  16,  1877. 


ON  the  3ist  of  October,  1877,  Mr.  Thomas  Ewing,  of  Ohio,  Chair 
man  of  the  Committee  on  Banking  and  Currency,  reported  from  that 
committee  a  bill  bearing  this  title  :  "  A  Bill  to  repeal  the  third  section 
of  the  Act  entitled,  *  An  Act  to  provide  for  the  Resumption  of  Specie 
Payments.'  "  The  section  proposed  to  be  repealed  was  the  heart  of  the 
Resumption  Act  of  1875,  so  tnat  Mr.  Swing's  bill  struck  at  the  life  of 
resumption. 

November  23,  a  substitute  for  the  Ewing  bill,  offered  by  Mr.  Fort,  of 
Illinois,  was  agreed  to,  and  thus  amended  the  bill  passed  the  same  day. 
June  13,  1878,  the  Senate  passed  this  as  a  substitute  for  the  House  bill : 
"  Be  it  enacted,  etc.,  That  from  and  after  the  passage  of  this  act  United 
States  notes  shall  be  receivable  the  same  as  coin  in  payment  for  the  four 
per  cent  bonds  now  authorized  by  law  to  be  issued ;  and  on  and  after 
October  i,  1878,  said  notes  shall  be  receivable  for  duties  on  imports." 
The  House  refused  to  concur,  and  repeal  failed. 

Pending  the  original  Ewing  bill,  Mr.  Garfield  made  the  following  speech. 


"Our  own  history  has  recorded  for  our  instruction  enough,  and  more  than  enough,  of 
the  demoralizing  tendency,  the  injustice,  and  the  intolerable  oppression  on  the  virtuous  and 
well  disposed,  of  a  degraded  paper  currency,  authorized  by  law,  or  in  any  way  countenanced  by 
government."  —  DANIEL  WEBSTER. 

MR.  SPEAKER,  —  We  are  engaged  in  a  debate  which  has 
lasted  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  for  more  than  two 
centuries ;  and  hardly  any  phase  of  it  to  which  we  have  listened 
in  the  course  of  the  last  week  is  new.  Hardly  a  proposition  has 
been  heard  on  either  side  which  was  not  made  one  hundred  and 
eighty  years  ago  in  England,  and  almost  a  hundred  years  ago 
in  the  United  States.  So  singularly  does  history  repeat  itself. 


REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW.          491 

That  man  makes  a  vital  mistake  who  judges  of  truth  in  relation 
to  financial  affairs  from  the  changing  phases  of  public  opinion. 
He  might  as  well  stand  on  the  shore  of  the  Bay  of  Fundy, 
and  from  the  ebb  and  flow  of  a  single  tide  attempt  to  deter 
mine  the  general  level  of  the  sea,  as  to  stand  on  this  floor  and 
from  the  current  of  opinion  in  any  one  debate  judge  of  the 
general  level  of  the  public  mind.  It  is  only  when  long  spaces 
along;  the  shore  of  the  sea  are  taken  into  the  account,  that  the 

o 

grand  level  is  found  from  which  all  heights  and  depths  are 
measured.  And  it  is  only  when  long  periods  of  time  are  con 
sidered,  that  we  find  at  last  that  level  of  public  opinion  which 
we  call  the  general  judgment  of  mankind.  From  the  turbulent 
ebb  and  flow  of  the  public  opinion  of  to-day  I  appeal  to  the 
settled  judgment  of  mankind  on  the  subject-matter  of  this 
debate. 

In  the  short  time  which  is  allotted  to  me,  I*  invite  the  attention 
of  gentlemen  who  do  me  the  honor  to  listen  to  a  very  remarka 
ble  fact.1  I  suppose  it  will  be  admitted  on  all  hands  that  1860 
was  a  year  of  unusual  business  prosperity  in  the  United  States. 
It  was  a  time  when  the  bounties  of  Providence  were  scattered 
with  a  liberal  hand  over  the  face  of  our  republic.  It  was  a  time 
when  all  classes  of  our  community  were  well  and  profitably 
employed.  It  was  a  time  of  peace ;  the  apprehension  of  our 
civil  war  had  not  yet  seized  the  minds  of  our  people.  Great 
crops  North  and  South,  great  general  prosperity,  marked  the  era. 
If  one  question  of  financial  policy  was  settled  in  the  American 
mind  above  all  other  questions  at  that  time,  it  was  that  the 
only  sound,  safe,  trustworthy  standard  of  value  was  coin  of 
standard  weight  and  fineness,  or  a  paper  currency  convertible 
into  coin  at  the  will  of  the  holder.  That  was  and  had  been  for 
several  generations  the  almost  unanimous  opinion  of  the  Ameri 
can  people.  It  is  true  there  was  here  and  there  a  theorist, 
dreaming  of  the  philosopher's  stone,  dreaming  of  a  time  when 
paper  money,  which  he  worshipped  as  a  kind  of  fetich,  would  be 
crowned  as  a  god ;  but  those  dreamers  were  so  few  in  number 
that  they  made  no  ripple  on  the  current  of  public  thought,  and 
their  theories  formed  no  part  of  public  opinion.  The  opinion 
of  1 860-6 1  was  the  aggregated  result  of  the  opinions  of  all  the 
foremost  Americans  who  have  left  a  record  upon  this  sub 
ject.  I  make  this  last  statement  without  fear  of  contradiction, 
1  Mr.  Garfield's  time  was  extended  by  general  consent. 


492          REPEAL    OF  THE   RESUMPTION  LAW. 

because  I  have  carefully  examined  the  list  of  illustrious  names 
and  the  records  that  they  have  left  behind  them.  No  man 
ever  sat  in  the  chair  at  Washington  as  President  of  the  United 
States  who  has  left  on  record  any  word  that  favors  inconvertible 
paper  money  as  a  safe  standard  of  value.  Every  President  who 
has  left  a  record  on  the  subject  has  spoken  without  qualification 
in  favor  of  the  doctrine  that  I  have  announced.  No  man  ever 
sat  in  the  chair  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States,  who,  if  he  has  spoken  on  the  subject  at  all,  has  not  left 
on  record  an  opinion  equally  strong,  from  Hamilton  down  to 
the  days  of  the  distinguished  father  of  my  colleague,1  and  to 
the  present  moment.  The  general  judgment  of  all  men  who 
deserve  to  be  called  the  leaders  of  American  thought  ought  to 
be  considered  worth  something  in  an  American  House  of  Rep 
resentatives  on  the  discussion  of  a  great  topic  like  this. 

What  happened  to  cause  a  departure  from  this  general  level 
of  public  opinion?  Every  man  knows  the  history.  War,  the 
imperious  necessities  of  war,  led  the  men  of  1861-62  to  depart 
from  the  doctrine  of  the  fathers.  They  did  not  depart  from  it 
as  a  matter  of  choice,  but  because  compelled  by  overmastering 
necessity.  Nearly  every  man  in  the  Senate  and  House  of  1862 
who  voted  for  the  greenback  law  announced  that  he  did  it  with 
the  greatest  possible  reluctance,  and  with  the  gravest  apprehen 
sion  for  the  result.  Every  man  who  spoke  on  the  subject,  from 
Thaddeus  Stevens  to  the  humblest  member  of  this  House,  and 
from  Fessenden  to  the  humblest  Senator,  warned  his  country 
against  the  dangers  that  might  follow,  and  pledged  his  honor 
that  at  the  earliest  possible  moment  the  country  should  be 
brought  back  to  the  old,  safe,  established  doctrine  of  the  fathers. 
When  they  made  the  law  creating  the  greenbacks  they  incor 
porated  into  its  essential  provisions  the  most  solemn  pledge 
that  men  could  devise,  that  they  would  return  to  the  old  estab 
lished  doctrines.  The  very  law  that  created  the  greenback 
provided  for  its  redemption  and  retirement ;  and  whenever  the 
necessities  of  war  required  additional  issues,  new  guaranties 
and  new  limitations  were  put  upon  them  to  insure  their  ulti 
mate  redemption.  They  were  made  upon  the  fundamental 
condition,  that  the  number  should  be  so  limited  forever  that 
under  the  law  of  contracts  the  courts  might  enforce  their  sanc 
tions.  The  men  of  1862  knew  the  dangers  from  the  sad  expe- 

1  Mr.  Ewing. 


REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW.         493 

ricnce  found  in  our  history;  and,  like  Ulysses,  lashed  themselves 
to  the  mast  of  public  credit  when  they  embarked  upon  the 
stormy  and  boisterous  sea  of  inflated  paper  money,  that  they 
might  not  be  beguiled  by  the  siren  song  that  would  be  sung 
to  them  when  they  were  afloat  on  the  wild  waves. 

But  the  times  have  changed ;  new  men  are  on  deck,  —  men 
who  have  forgotten  the  old  pledges ;  and  now  only  twelve  years 
have  passed,  —  for  as  late  as  1865  this  House,  with  but  six  dis 
senting  votes,  resolved  again  to  stand  in  the  old  ways  and  bring 
the  country  back  to  sound  money,  —  only  twelve  years  have 
passed,  and  what  do  we  find?  We  find  a  group  of  theorists  and 
doctrinaires  who  look  upon  the  wisdom  of  the  fathers  as  foolish 
ness.  We  find  some  who  advocate  what  they  call  "  absolute 
money";  who  declare  that  a  piece  of  paper  stamped  a  "  dollar" 
is  a  dollar ;  who  say  that  gold  and  silver  are  a  part  of  the  bar 
barism  of  the  past,  which  ought  to  be  forever  abandoned.  We 
hear  them  declaring  that  resumption  is  a  delusion  and  a  snare; 
that  the  eras  of  prosperity  are  the  eras  of  paper  money.  They 
point  us  to  all  times  of  inflation  as  periods  of  blessing  to  the 
people  and  prosperity  to  business ;  and  they  ask  us  no  more  to 
vex  their  ears  with  any  allusion  to  the  old  standard,  the  money 
of  the  Constitution.  Let  the  wild  crop  of  financial  literature 
that  has  sprung  into  life  within  the  last  twelve  years  witness 
how  widely  and  how  far  we  have  drifted.  We  have  cut  loose 
from  our  old  moorings,  have  thrown  overboard  our  old  com 
pass  and  charts ;  we  sail  by  alien  stars,  on  a  harborless  sea. 

To  those  who  do  not  believe  in  keeping  the  promise  of  the 
nation  at  any  time,  I  make  no  argument  to-day;  but  to  those 
members  in  this  House  who  believe  that  at  some  time  or  other  we 
ought  to  return  to  the  ways  of  the  fathers,  to  the  money  of  the 
Constitution,  I  address  myself.  There  are  many  among  these 
who  believe  that  some  time  in  the  future  we  can  resume  specie 
payments,  but  who  believe  it  impossible  to-day  or  in  1879,  or,  if 
possible,  inexpedient.  They  hold  that  from  such  an  attempt 
evils  will  arise  to  the  country  greater  than  the  benefits;  and 
therefore  they  join  in  seeking  the  repeal  of  the  act  of  1875.  I 
have  no  doubt  they  regret  to  throw  their  influence  with  those 
men  who  do  not  believe  in  resuming  at  all.  To  these  I  say, 
Before  the  final  vote  is  taken,  let  us  reason  together. 

I  want  it  remembered  in  the  outset,  that  the  greenback  cur 
rency  was  and  is  — so  known  in  the  courts  and  so  known  every- 


494          REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW. 

where  —  a  forced  loan ;  a  loan  forced  by  the  government  upon 
its  army  and  upon  its  other  creditors  to  meet  the  great  emer 
gencies  of  the  war;  the  primary  fact  connected  with  every 
greenback  is  that  it  is  a  promise  to  pay.  Those  who  believe  in 
resumption  intend  that  some  time  or  other  the  nation  shall  make 
good  the  promise. 

Now  what  are  the  obstacles  to  resumption  in  accordance  with 
the  law  we  have  passed?  The  first  great  obstacle  stated  by 
gentlemen  who  have  argued  the  question  is  this :  that  we  have 
not  enough  currency  in  the  country  for  its  business,  and  that 
some  measure  of  contraction  will  be  likely  to  attend  the  further 
execution  of  the  provisions  of  the  resumption  law.  Before  I 
enter  directly  upon  that  objection  I  desire  to  state  a  fact  for  the 
consideration  of  those  who  hear  me.  In*  the  prosperous  year 
1860,  when  there  was  free  banking  in  most  of  the  States,  and 
the  banks  were  pushing  all  the  currency  they  could  into  circula 
tion  without  limit,  there  was  in  circulation  just  $207,000,000  of 
paper  currency,  and  that  was  the  largest  volume  that  this  coun 
try  had  ever  known. 

MR.  BUCKNER.  I  wish  to  say  that  Secretary  Cobb  reported  in  1857 
that  we  had  $215,000,000  of  circulation  in  paper,  and  $275,000,000  in 
coin  in  gold  and  silver. 

I  will  say  to  the  gentleman  from  Missouri,  that,  not  only  years 
ago,  but  again  recently,  I  have  gone  through  the  reports,  and 
made  the  most  careful  estimate  of  which  I  have  been  capable, 
and  I  beg  to  state  that  $207,000,000  is  the  recognized  settled 
amount  for  1860.  It  is  true  that,  for  a  few  months  just  previous 
to  the  panic  of  1857,  the  volume  of  paper  money  did  reach 
$215,000,000;  but  that  was  wholly  exceptional.  In  no  year  of 
prosperity  had  the  volume  been  so  great  as  in  1860. 

Now,  nobody  estimates  the  amount  of  coin  in  the  country 
in  1860  at  more  than  $250,000,000.  The  received  estimate  is 
$200,000,000.  Add  that  sum  to  the  $207,000,000  of  paper  circu 
lation,  and  you  have  $407,000,000  of  currency,  —  paper,  silver, 
and  gold.  How  much  have  we  to-day?  This  day,  or  rather  on 
the  first  day  of  this  month,  we  had  $727,000,000  of  greenbacks, 
bank-notes,  fractional  currency,  and  fractional  silver;  and  if 
you  add  the  $9,000,000  of  copper  and  nickel  money  now  out 
standing,  it  makes  a  present  volume  of  $736,000,000  of  cur 
rency,  counting  no  gold  whatever,  although  the  Pacific  coast 
uses  a  large  amount. 


REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW.          495 

Now,  I  put  it  to  the  judgment  of  this  House  if,  under  free 
banking  $407,000,000  was  the  limit  of  possible  currency  that 
could  be  kept  in  circulation  in  1860,  how  can  it  be  said  that 
almost  twice  that  amount  is  needed,  and  is  hardly  enough,  for 
the  wants  of  1877?  Have  the  laws  of  value  changed  in  seven 
teen  years?  Gentlemen  who  assert  a  dearth  of  currency  at  the 
present  time  must  point  out  the  new  elements  in  our  fiscal 
affairs  that  require  $380,000,000  more  money  than  was  needed 
in  1860.  No  theory  of  currency  that  existed  in  1860  can  justify 
the  volume  now  outstanding.  Either  our  laws  of  trade,  our 
laws  of  value,  our  laws  of  exchange,  have  been  utterly  reversed, 
or  the  currency  of  to-day  is  in  excess  of  the  legitimate  wants  of 
trade.  But  I  admit  freely  that  no  Congress  is  wise  enough  to 
determine  how  much  currency  the  country  needs.  There  never 
was  a  body  of  men  wise  enough  to  do  that.  The  volume  of 
currency  needed  depends  upon  laws  that  are  higher  than  Con 
gress  and  higher  than  governments.  One  thing  only  legislation 
can  do.  It  can  determine  the  quality  of  the  money  of  the  coun 
try.  The  laws  of  trade  alone  can  determine  its  quantity. 

In  connection  with  this  view,  we  are  met  by  the  distinguished 
gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  1  with  two  historical  references,  on 
which  he  greatly  relies  in  opposing  resumption.  The  first  is  his 
reference  to  France.  Follow  France,  says  the  honorable  gen 
tleman  from  Pennsylvania,  follow  France ;  see  how  she  poured 
out  volumes  of  paper  money,  and  by  it  survived  a  great  crisis 
and  maintained  her  business  prosperity.  O  that  the  gentleman 
and  those  who  vote  with  him  would  follow  France !  I  gladly 
accept  his  allusion  to  France.  As  a  proof  that  we  have  not 
enough  money,  he  notices  the  fact  that  France  has  always  used 
more  money  than  either  the  United  States  or  England.  I  admit 
it.  But  does  the  gentleman  not  know  that  the  traditions  and 
habits  of  France  in  regard  to  the  use  of  money  are  as  unlike 
those  of  England  and  the  United  States  as  those  of  any  two 
nations  of  the  world  can  be?  I  say  to  the  gentleman  that  in 
France  the  bank  as  an  instrument  of  trade  is  almost  unknown. 
There  are  no  banks  in  France  except  the  Bank  of  France. 
The  Bank  has  been  trying  for  twenty  years  to  establish 
branches  in  all  the  eighty-nine  departments,  and  thus  far  only 
fifty-six  branches  have  been  organized.  Our  national,  State, 
and  private  banks  number  nearly  ten  thousand.  The  habits  of 

i  Mr.  Kelley. 


496          REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW. 

the  French  people  are  not  adapted  to  the  use  of  banks  as  in 
struments  of  exchange.  All  the  deposits  in  all  the  savings 
banks  of  France  are  not  equal  to  the  deposits  in  the  savings 
banks  of  New  York  City  alone.  It  is  the  frequent  complaint  of 
Americans  who  make  purchases  in  Paris,  that  merchants  will  not 
accept  drafts  even  on  the  Bank  of  France.  Victor  Bonnet,  a 
recent  French  writer,  says :  — 

"  The  use  of  deposits,  bank  accounts,  and  checks  is  still  in  its  infancy 
in  this  country.  They  are  very  little  used  even  in  the  great  cities,  while 
in  the  rest  of  France  they  are  completely  unknown.  It  is,  however,  to 
be  hoped  that  they  will  be  more  employed  hereafter,  and  that  here,  as  in 
England  and  the  United  States,  payments  will  be  more  generally  made 
through  the  medium  of  bankers  and  by  transfers  in  account  current.  If 
this  should  be  the  case,  we  shall  economize  both  in  the  use  of  specie 
and  of  bank-notes ;  for  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  use  of  bank-notes 
does  not  reach  its  fullest  development  except  in  countries  where  the 
keeping  of  bank  accounts  is  unusual,  as  is  evident  by  comparing  France 
in  this  respect  with  England." 

"  M.  Pinard,  manager  of  the  Comptoir  d'Escompte,  testified  before 
the  Commission  of  Inquiry,  that  the  greatest  efforts  have  been  made  by 
that  institution  to  induce  French  merchants  and  shopkeepers  to  adopt 
English  habits  in  respect  to  the  use  of  checks  and  the  keeping  of  bank 
accounts,  but  in  vain  ;  their  prejudices  were  invincible.  '  It  was  no  use 
reasoning  with  them ;  they  would  not  do  it,  because  they  would  not.'  "  ] 

So  long  as  the  business  of  their  country  is  thus  done  hand  to 
hand  by  the  use  of  cash,  the  French  need  a  much  greater  vol 
ume  of  money  in  proportion  to  their  business  than  England  or 
the  United  States. 

How  is  it  in  England?  Statistics  which  no  man  will  gainsay 
show  that  ninety-five  per  cent  of  all  the  great  mercantile  trans 
actions  of  England  are  done  by  drafts,  checks,  and  commercial 
bills,  and  only  five  per  cent  by  the  actual  use  of  cash.  The 
great  business  of  commerce  and  trade  is  done  by  drafts  and 
bills.  Money  is  now  only  the. small  change  of  commerce. 

And  how  is  it  in  this  country?  We  have  adopted  the  habits 
of  England,  and  not  of  France,  in  this  regard.  In  1871,  when 
I  was  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Banking  and  Currency,  I 
asked  the  Comptroller  of  the  Currency  to  issue  a  special  order 
to  fifty-two  banks.  I  selected  three  groups.  The  first  was  city 

1  The  Example  of  France,  etc.,  translated  from  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes, 
by  George  Walker,  (New  York,  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,)  p.  60,  text  and  Walker's  note. 


REPEAL    OF  THE   RESUMPTION  LAW.          497 

banks;  not,  however,  the  clearing-house  banks,  but  the  great 
city  banks  not  in  the  clearing-house  associations.  The  second 
consisted  of  banks  in  cities  of  the  size  of  Toledo  and  Dayton,  in 
the  State  of  Ohio.  In  the  third  group,  if  I  may  coin  a  word,  I 
selected  the  countriest  banks,  the  smallest  that  could  be  found, 
at  points  away  from  railroads  and  telegraphs.  The  order  was 
that  those  banks  should  analyze  all  their  receipts  for  six  con 
secutive  days,  putting  into  one  column  all  that  can  be  called 
cash,  coin,  greenbacks,  bank-notes,  or  coupons,  and  into  the 
other  list  all  drafts,  checks,  or  commercial  bills.  What  was 
the  result?  In  those  six  days  $157,000,000  was  received  over 
the  counters  of  the  fifty-two  banks ;  and  of  that  amount 
$19,370,000 — twelve  per  cent  only — in  cash,  and  $137,630,000 
— -eighty-eight  per  cent  —  in  checks,  drafts,  and  commercial 
bills.  Does  a  country  that  transacts  its  business  in  that  way 
need  as  much  currency  afloat  among  the  people  as  a  country 
like  France,  —  without  banks,  without  savings  institutions,  and 
whose  people  keep  their  money  in  hoards? 

I  remember  in  one  of  the  novels  of  Dumas,  that  when  an  offi 
cer  of  the  French  army  sent  home  an  agent  to  run  his  farm, 
he  loaded  him  down  with  silver  enough  to  conduct  the  busi 
ness  for  a  year;  there  was  no  thought  of  giving  him  credit  in 
a  bank ;  but  at  its  beginning  enough  coin  to  do  the  business 
of  the  year  was  locked  in  the  till.  So  much  for  the  difference 
between  the  habits  of  France  and  those  of  Anglo-Saxon  coun 
tries. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  conduct  of  France  during  and  since 
the  German  war.  In  July,  1870,  the  month  before  the  war  be 
gan,  the  Bank  of  France  had  outstanding  $251,000,000  of  paper 
circulation,  and  held  in  its  vaults  $229,000,000  of  coin.  When 
the  war  broke  out,  they  were  compelled  immediately  to  issue 
more  paper,  and  to  make  it  a  legal  tender.  In  their  necessity 
they  took  pattern  of  us,  and  issued  paper  until,  on  the  I9th  of 
November,  1873,  there  was  outstanding  $602,000,000  of  paper 
issued  by  the  Bank  of  France,  while  the  coin  in  the  bank  was 
reduced  to  $146,000,000.  But  the  moment  their  great  war  was 
over  and  their  territory  freed  from  the  enemy,  the  French  did 
what  I  commend  to  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania,  —  they 
commenced  to  reduce  their  paper  circulation,  and  in  one  year 
reduced  it  almost  $100,000,000,  and  increased  the  coin  reserve 
$120,000,000.  By  the  year  1876  they  had  pushed  into  circu- 

VOL.    II.  32 


498          REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW. 

lation  $200,000,000  of  coin,  and  retired  nearly  all  their  small 
notes.  They  are  at  this  moment  within  fifty  days  of  resumption 
of  specie  payments.  Under  their  law,  fifty  days  from  to-day 
France  will  again  come  into  the  illustrious  line  of  nations  that 
maintain  a  sound  currency.  I  commend  to  the  eloquent  gentle 
man  from  Pennsylvania  the  example  of  France. 

Before  leaving  this  point,  it  is  worth  while  to  notice  the  fact 
that  France  has  not  yielded  to  the  paper-money  doctrines  which 
find  so  much  favor  here.  One  of  her  ablest  financial  writers, 
Victor  Bonnet,  writing  in  July,  1874,  says:  — 

a  It  is  ....  difficult  to  say  to  what  point  we  can  reduce  the  credit 
circulation  ;  but  whatever  that  point  may  be,  a  paper  currency  will  never 
be  sound  unless  it  is  based  on  a  very  considerable  reserve  of  specie,  nor 
unless  it  is  accompanied  by  a  favorable  state  of  the  exchanges. 

"  The  fact  that  we  have  lately  had  a  paper  circulation  of  3,000,000,000 
francs  without  depreciation,  does  not  militate  against  this  assertion. 
This  result  was  accomplished  by  means  of  a  large  reserve  of  specie,  and 
a  favorable  state  of  the  foreign  exchanges.  It  succeeded  perfectly,  and 
we  may  fairly  assert  that,  financially  speaking,  it  saved  France.  Never 
theless,  we  ran  great  risks  :  if  trade  had  not  revived  immediately  after 
the  Commune ;  if  foreigners  had  not  shown  confidence  in  the  future  of 
France,  by  subscribing  to  our  loans ;  if  we  had  been  obliged  to  export  a 
large  amount  of  specie  to  pay  the  Prussian  indemnity ;  in  a  word,  if  the 
exchanges  had  continued  very  unfavorable  to  us,  as  they  were  for  a  brief 
period  at  the  end  of  1871,  —  our  paper  money  would  very  quickly 
have  fallen  in  value,  and  its  downward  progress  would  have  been  rapid, 
much  more  rapid  than  the  increase  in  its  amount.  Fortunately  for  us, 
the  contrary  of  all  this  has  happened ;  but  let  us  not  draw  any  false  in 
ferences  for  the  future  from  this  happy  concurrence  of  circumstances. 
We  may  be  sure  that  the  principles  which  regulate  a  credit  currency  are 
precisely  the  same  in  1874  as  they  were  prior  to  1870,  and  that  a  condi 
tion  of  legal  tender,  and  suspended  specie  payments,  is  always  a  misfor 
tune.  We  submit  to  it  when  it  is  inevitable,  but  we  should  hasten  to  get 
out  of  it  as  soon  as  we  have  the  means."  l 

But  the  gentleman  has  found  something  in  the  example  of 
England  which  he  uses  to  bolster  up  his  opposition  to  resump 
tion.  There  is  nothing  more  remarkable  than  the  sudden  pop 
ularity  of  certain  writers  who  till  very  lately  were  unknown  as 
authorities  on  finance.  About  ten  years  ago,  when  I  tried  to 
make  a  careful  study  of  these  questions,  I  came  across  a  pam- 

1  The  Example  of  France,  etc.,  pp.  60,  61. 


REPEAL    OF   THE  RESUMPTION  LAW.          499 

phlet  which  I  thought  at  the  time  the  most  remarkably  absurd 
document  I  had  ever  read,  —  a  pamphlet  published  under  the 
sanction  of  the  name  of  Sir  Archibald  Alison,  entitled,  "  England 
in  1815  and  1845  ;  or,  a  Sufficient  and  a  Contracted  Currency." 
I  took  pains  to  make  a  careful  synopsis  of  it,  and,  as  the  new 
doctrines  of  money  sprang  up  in  Congress,  I  wondered  that 
nobody  quoted  from  Sir  Archibald  Alison ;  but  I  have  heard 
Alison  during  the  last  four  or  five  years  ad  nauseam.  Who  is 
Sir  Archibald  Alison?  No  man  who  fills  an  important  place  in 
English  literary  history  has  less  credit  on  questions  of  finance 
than  he.  Let  me  give  a  specimen  of  Sir  Archibald's  financial 
wisdom,  of  which  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  is  so  enam 
ored.  On  the  second  and  third  pages  of  the  pamphlet  to  which 
I  have  referred,  he  says:  "The  eighteen  years  of  war  from  1797 
to  1815  were,  as  all  the  world  knows,  the  most  glorious,  and, 
taken  as  a  whole,  the  most  prosperous,  that  Great  Britain  had 
ever  known Prosperity,  universal  and  unheard  of,  per 
vaded  every  department  of  the  empire."  He  then  enumerates 
the  evidences  of  this  prosperity,  and  prominent  among  them 
is  the  fact  that,  while  "  the  revenue  raised  by  taxation  was 
but  £2 1, 000,000  in  1796,  it  had  reached  ^72,000,000  in  1815; 
the  total  expenditures  from  taxes  and  loans  had  reached 
;£ 1 1 7,000,000."  Happy  people,  whose  burdens  of  taxation  were 
quadrupled  in  eighteen  years,  and  whose  expenses,  consumed 
in  war,  exceeded  their  revenues  by  the  sum  of  $225,000,000  in 
gold !  This  is  the  kind  of  financial  authority  that  gentlemen 
now  parade  with  so  much  satisfaction  in  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States. 

Another  man,  a  Mr.  Doubleday,  is  also  drafted  into  the  ser 
vice.  I  do  not  find  that  any  penny-a-liner  in  England,  much 
less  any  great  journalist,  has  ever  deigned  to  answer,  in  an 
English  paper,  the  twaddle  of  that  writer.  He  is,  however,  just 
now  very  popular  with  certain  gentlemen  in  the  United  States, 
and  he  has  been  flung  at  us  the  last  six  or  seven  years  until  it 
rids  seemed  as  though  tomahawks  were  flying  through  the  air, 
with  "  Doubleday  "  inscribed  on  their  blades. 

Waiving,  however,  all  that  may  be  said  in  regard  to  the  mer 
its  of  these  two  writers,  I  say  in  reply  that  the  overwhelming 
and  fixed  opinion  of  England  is  that  the  cash-resumption  act  of 
1819  was  a  blessing,  and  not  a  curse,  and  that  the  evils  which 
England  suffered  from  1821  to  1826  did  not  arise  from  the 


500  REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW. 

resumption  of  cash  payments.  I  appeal  to  every  great  writer 
of  acknowledged  authority  in  England  for  the  truth  of  this 
position.  I  ask  gentlemen  to  read  the  eighth  chapter  of  the 
second  book  of  Miss  Martineau's  "  History  of  the  Peace,"  where 
the  case  is  admirably  stated.  I  appeal  also  to  the  opinion  of 
Parliament  itself,  especially  to  that  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
which  is  as  sensitive  an  index  of  public  opinion  as  England 
knows.  When  they  were  within  about  eighteen  months  of  re 
sumption  of  specie  payments,  a  motion  was  made,  like  the 
motion  of  my  colleague,  that  the  resumption  act  be  repealed 
or  modified,  because  it  was  producing  distress.  And  a  number 
of  gentlemen  in  the  House  of  Commons  made  speeches  of  the 
same  spirit  as  those  which  we  have  heard  here  within  the  past 
week.  The  distress  among  the  people,  the  crippling  of  busi 
ness,  the  alarm  of  the  mercantile  classes,  all  were  paraded  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  were  answered  by  those  knights 
of  finance  whose  names  have  become  illustrious  in  English  his 
tory.  At  the  end  of  a  long  debate  on  that  proposition,  on  the 
nth  of  April,  1821,  the  proposition  was  rejected  by  a  vote  of 
141  to  27.  In  other  words,  by  a  vote  of  141  to  27  the  House 
of  Commons  resolved  that  their  act  for  the  resumption  of  specie 
payments  was  not  causing  distress,  ought  not  to  be  repealed, 
and  ought  not  to  be  modified,  except  to  make  it  more  effective. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  so  modified  as  to  allow  resumption  to 
take  place  much  sooner  than  was  provided  in  the  act  of  1819. 

But  this  was  not  enough.  On  the  nth  of  June,  1822,  a  Mr. 
Western  moved  for  the  appointment  of  a  committee  to  inquire 
into  the  effect  of  the  resumption  law,  and  charged  that  it  had 
caused  a  violent  contraction  of  the  currency  and  an  injury  to  the 
business  of  the  country.  Again  the  subject  was  fully  debated, 
and  the  arguments  against  the  resumption  act  were  completely 
answered.  By  a  vote  of  192  to  30  the  motion  of  Mr.  Western 
was  rejected ;  and  the  Commons  resolved  that  they  would  not 
alter  the  standard  of  gold  or  silver,  in  fineness,  weight,  or  de 
nomination.  Surely  the  House  of  Commons  must  be  assumed 
to  know  something  of  the  condition  of  England,  as  much  at  least 
as  Alison,  who  wrote  upon  the  subject  a  quarter  of  a  century 
afterwards. 

Still,  gentlemen  tell  us  that  the  great  distress  in  England  was 
caused  by  the  resumption  act.  I  commend  those  gentlemen  to 
such  great  writers  as  Tooke,  who,  in  his  "  History  of  Prices,"  has 


REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW.         501 

gone  over  this  ground  most  thoroughly  and  ably.  He  says  it 
was  the  corn  laws  that  produced  the  great  evils  from  which 
England  suffered  in  those  years.  A  law  had  been  passed  to 
prevent  the  price  of  wheat  from  falling  below  eighty  shillings 
per  quarter,  by  prohibiting  all  foreign  importations  whenever 
the  price  fell  below  that  figure.  In  other  words,  England  pro 
posed  to  build  a  Chinese  wall  around  her  island,  so  as  to  make 
wheat  one  of  the  most  profitable  crops  for  her  farmers.  Stimu 
lated  by  that  law,  the  agriculturists  of  England  undertook  the 
growing  of  wheat  on  a  scale  before  unknown.  And  when  they 
had  expended  millions  in  reclaiming  waste  lands  and  sowing  an 
unusual  breadth  of  wheat,  their  own  harvest  and  the  importa 
tions  from  the  colonies  flooded  the  market,  lowered  the  price, 
and  bankrupted  thousands  of  English  farmers.  In  spite  of  the 
law,  wheat  went  down  to  forty-seven  shillings  and  ninepence 
per  quarter,  and  brought  great  distress  upon  the  agricultural 
population.  That  this  fall  in  the  price  of  wheat  was  not  caused 
by  the  resumption  act  is  conclusively  shown  by  the  fact  that 
the  three  great  harvests  of  1820,  1821,  and  1822  were  general 
throughout  Europe ;  and  on  the  Continent  the  price  of  wheat 
declined  almost  as  much  as  in  England  itself. 

In  1822  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  was  appoint 
ed  to  inquire  into  all  the  causes  of  the  distress.  I  have  read  the 
report  in  full,  and  there  is  not  a  word  in  it  that  attributes  any 
part  of  the  distress  to  the  resumption  act  of  1819:  the  causes 
given  are  those  which  I  have  named. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  was  amazed  at  my  friend  from  Pennsylvania 
presenting  here  a  table  which  he  found  in  somebody's  atlas,  — 
a  table  giving  the  amount  of  circulating  notes  in  England  in 
different  years,  from  1818  to  1826,  and  opposite  each  year  the 
word  "  prosperity "  or  the  word  "  distress."  This  table  has 
been  referred  to  by  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  as  proof  that 
the  resumption  act  of  England  produced  the  distress  of  1825. 
If  gentlemen  will  look  at  their  own  table,  they  will  find  a  con 
clusive  answer  to  their  proposition.  The  gentleman  from  Penn 
sylvania  said  a  day  or  two  ago,  in  answer  to  a  question,  that 
the  cash-payment  act  went  into  effect  in  1823.  In  that  he  was 
mistaken;  it  went  into  effect  in  1821.  But  supposing  he  was 
correct,  his  table  shows  that  the  years  1824  and  1825  were  years 
of  great  prosperity  and  speculation.  These  two  years  are  so 
put  down  in  his  own  table.  Does  that  prove  that  distress  was 


502  REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW. 

produced  by  the  resumption  act?  The  fact  is,  that  the  great 
speculation  in  the  apparent  prosperity  of  1825  was  the  begin 
ning  and  the  cause  of  the  tremendous  crisis  that  struck  Eng 
land  in  the  latter  part  of  that  year,  and  prostrated  its  business 
again.  This  is  the  testimony  of  her  foremost  writers. 

Before  quitting  this  point,  I  beg  leave  at  once  to  put  myself 
in  the  category  to  which  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  as 
signed  the  late  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Hugh  McCulloch. 
He  read  three  lines  from  a  paper  of  Mr.  McCulloch  in  the 
North  American  Review,  and  said  it  was  an  example  of  aston 
ishing  ignorance  or  astonishing  mendacity.  What  was  the 
statement  denounced  as  so  ignorant  or  so  mendacious?  It  was 
that  every  great  crisis  in  this  country  has  been  preceded  by 
an  enlargement  of  paper  circulation.  I  affirm  that  to  be  true, 
and  I  challenge  any  man  to  controvert  it.  It  was  true  in  Eng 
land  always.  It  has  been  true  in  this  country  always.  We  had 
a  great  crisis  in  1797,  another  in  1817,  another  in  1837,  an~ 
other  in  1857,  and  our  last  in  1873,  —  almost  exactly  twenty 
years  apart.  These  crises  are  periodic,  and  return  as  the  result 
of  causes  springing  up  among  our  business  people;  they  have 
all  been  preceded  by  overtrading,  speculation,  an  undue  expan 
sion  of  the  instruments  of  credit,  and  have  all  resulted  in  the 
same  sad  uniformity  of  misery  that  has  followed  their  culmina 
tion. 

I  now  proceed  to  notice  the  second  point  that  has  been 
made  in  favor  of  this  bill.  It  is  assumed  that  specie  payments 
will  injure  the  debtor  class  of  this  country,  and  thereby  oppress 
the  poor;  in  other  words,  that  the  enforcement  of  the  resump 
tion  law  will  oppress  the  poor,  and  increase  the  riches  of  the 
rich.  It  is  assumed  that  the  laboring  men  are  in  debt,  and  that 
the  rich  men  constitute  the  creditor  class.  I  deny  this  propo 
sition  in  toto.  I  affirm  that  the  vast  majority  of  the  creditors 
of  this  country  are  poor  people ;  that  the  vast  majority  of  the 
debtors  of  this  country  are  well-to-do  people,  —  in  fact,  people 
who  are  moderately  rich.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  poor  man, 
the  laboring  man,  cannot  get  heavily  in  debt.  He  has  not  the 
security  to  offer.  Men  lend  their  money  on  security ;  and,  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  case,  poor  men  can  borrow  but  little. 
What,  then,  do  poor  men  do  with  their  small  earnings?  When 
a  man  has  earned,  out  of  his  hard  work,  a  hundred  dollars  more 
than  he  needs  for  current  expenses,  he  reasons  thus :  "  I  can- 


REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW.          503 

not  go  into  business  with  a  hundred  dollars ;  I  cannot  embark 
in  trade ;  but,  as  I  work,  I  want  my  money  to  work."  And  so 
he  puts  his  small  gains  where  they  will  earn  something.  He 
lends  his  money  to  a  wealthier  neighbor,  or  puts  it  into  a  sav 
ings  bank.  There  were  in  the  United  States,  on  the  ist  of 
November,  1876,  4,475  savings  banks  and  private  banks  of  de 
posit;  and  their  deposits  amounted  to  $1,377,000,000,  almost 
three  fourths  the  amount  of  our  national  debt.  Over  two  and 
a  half  millions  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  were  deposi 
tors.  In  some  States  the  deposits  did  not  average  more  than 
$250  each.  The  great  mass  of  the  depositors  are  men  and 
women  of  small  means,  —  laborers,  widows,  and  orphans.  They 
are  the  lenders  of  this  enormous  aggregate.  The  savings  banks, 
as  their  agents,  lend  it  to  whom?  Not  to  the  laboring  poor,  but 
to  business  men  who  wish  to  enlarge  their  business  beyond  their 
capital.  Speculators  sometimes  borrow  it.  But,  in  the  main, 
well-to-do  business  men  borrow  these  hoardings.  Thus  the 
poor  lend  to  the  rich. 

Gentlemen  assail  the  bondholders  of  the  country  as  the  rich 
men  who  oppress  the  poor.  Do  they  know  how  vast  an  amount 
of  the  public  securities  are  held  by  poor  people?  I  took  occa 
sion  a  few  years  since  to  ask  the  officers  of  a  bank  in  one  of  the 
counties  of  my  district,  —  a  rural  district,  —  to  show  me  the 
number  of  holders,  and  the  amounts  held,  of  United  States 
bonds,  on  which  his  bank  collected  the  interest.  The  total 
amount  was  $416,000.  And  how  many  people  held  those 
bonds?  One  hundred  and  ninety-six.  Of  these  just  eight  men 
held  from  $15,000  to  $20,000  each;  the  other  one  hundred  and 
eighty-eight  ranged  from  $50  up  to  $2,500.  I  found  in  that 
list  fifteen  orphan  children  and  sixty  widows,  who  had  a  little 
money  left  them  from  their  fathers'  or  husbands'  estates,  and 
who  had  made  the  nation  their  guardian.  And  I  found  one 
hundred  and  twenty-one  laborers,  mechanics,  ministers,  who 
had  put  their  small  means  in  the  hands  of  the  United  States 
that  it  might  be  safe.  And  they  were  the  "  bloated  bond 
holders"  against  whom  so  much  eloquence  is  fulminated  in 
this  House ! 

There  is  another  way  in  which  poor  men  dispose  of  their 
money.  A  man  says,  I  can  keep  my  wife  and  babies  from 
starving  while  I  live  and  have  my  health,  but  if  I  die  they  may 
be  compelled  to  go  "over  the  hill  to  the  poorhouse";  and,  ago- 


504          REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW. 

nized  by  that  thought,  he  saves  of  his  hard  earnings  enough  to 
take  out  and  keep  alive  a  small  life-insurance  policy,  so  that,  if 
he  dies,  there  may  be  something  left,  provided  the  insurance 
company  to  which  he  intrusts  his  money  is  honest  enough  to 
keep  its  pledges.  And  how  many  men  do  you  think  have  done 
that  in  the  United  States?  I  do  not  know  the  number  for  the 
whole  country ;  but  I  do  know  this,  that  from  a  late  report  of 
the  Insurance  Commissioners  of  the  State  of  New  York,  it  ap 
pears  that  the  companies  doing  business  in  that  State  had 
774,625  policies  in  force,  and  the  face  value  of  these  policies 
was  $1,922,000,000.  I  find,  by  looking  over  the  returns,  that  in 
my  State  there  are  55,000  policies  outstanding;  in  Pennsylva 
nia,  74,000;  in  Maine,  17,000;  in  Maryland,  25,000;  and  in  the 
State  of  New  York,  160,000.  There  are,  of  course,  some  rich 
men  insured  in  these  companies ;  but  the  majority  are  poor 
people,  for  the  policies  do  not  average  more  than  $2,200  each. 
What  is  done  with  the  assets  of  these  companies,  amounting  to 
$445,000,000?  They  are  loaned  out.  Here  again  the  creditor 
class  is  the  poor,  and  the  insurance  companies  are  the  agents  of 
the  poor  to  lend  their  money  for  them.  It  would  be  dishonora 
ble  for  Congress  to  legislate  either  for  the  debtor  class  or  for 
the  creditor  class  alone.  We  ought  to  legislate  for  the  whole 
country.  But  when  gentlemen  attempt  to  manufacture  senti 
ment  against  the  resumption  act,  by  saying  it  will  help  the  rich 
and  hurt  the  poor,  they  are  overwhelmingly  answered  by  the 
facts. 

Suppose  you  undo  the  work  of  resuming  specie  payments 
that  Congress  has  attempted,  what  will  result?  You  will  depre 
ciate  the  value  of  the  greenback.  Suppose  it  falls  ten  cents  on 
the  dollar.  You  will  have  destroyed  ten  per  cent  of  the  value 
of  every  deposit  in  the  savings  banks,  ten  per  cent  of  every  life- 
insurance  policy  and  fire-insurance  policy,  of  every  soldier's 
pension,  and  of  every  day's  wages  of  every  laborer  in  the  nation. 
In  the  census  of  1870,  it  was  estimated  that  on  any  given  day 
there  was  $120,000,000  due  to  the  laborers  for  their  unpaid 
wages.  That  is  a  small  estimate.  Let  the  greenback  dollar 
come  down  ten  per  cent,  and  you  take  $12,000,000  from  the 
men  who  have  already  earned  it.  In  the  name  of  every  inter 
est  connected  with  the  poor  man,  I  denounce  this  effort  to  pre 
vent  resumption.  Daniel  Webster  never  uttered  a  greater  truth 
in  finance,  than  when  he  said  that  of  all  contrivances  to  cheat 


REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW.          505 

the  laboring  classes  of  mankind  none  was  so  effective  as  that 
which  deluded  them  with  irredeemable  paper  money.  The  rich 
can  take  care  of  themselves;  but  the  dead-weight  of  all  the  fluc 
tuation  and  loss  falls  ultimately  on  the  poor  man  who  has  only 
his  day's  work  to  sell. 

I  admit  that  in  the  passage  from  peace  to  war  there  was  a 
great  loss  to  one  class  of  the  community,  to  the  creditors ;  and 
that  in  the  return  to  peace  there  was  some  loss  to  debtors.  This 
injustice  was  unavoidable.  The  loss  and  gain  did  not  fall  upon 
the  same  people.  The  evil  could  not  be  balanced  nor  adjusted. 
The  debtors  of  1862-65  are  not  the  debtors  of  1877.  Of 
course,  obligations  may  be  renewed,  but  the  most  competent 
judges  tell  us  that  the  average  life  of  private  debts  in  this  coun 
try  is  not  more  than  two  years.  Now,  we  have  already  gone  two 
years  on  the  road  to  resumption,  and  the  country  has  been  ad 
justing  itself  to  the  new  condition  of  things.  The  people  have 
expected  resumption,  and  have  already  discounted  most  of  the 
hardships  and  sufferings  incident  to  the  change.  The  agony  is 
almost  over ;  and  if  we  now  give  up  the  struggle,  we  lose  all 
that  has  been  gained,  and  commit  the  country  once  more  to 
the  boisterous  ocean,  with  all  its  perils  and  uncertainties.  I 
speak  the  deepest  convictions  of  my  mind  and  heart  when  I 
say  that,  should  the  resumption  act  be  repealed  and  no  effectual 
substitute  be  put  in  its  place,  the  day  is  not  far  distant  when 
all  of  us,  looking  back  on  this  time  from  the  depth  of  the  evils 
which  are  sure  to  result,  will  regret,  with  all  our  power  to  re 
gret,  the  day  when  we  again  let  loose  the  dangers  of  inflation 
upon  the  country. 

Gentlemen  speak  of  the  years  of  high  prices  as  years  of 
prosperity.  It  is  true  there  was  a  kind  of  prosperity  in  the 
days  of  high  prices ;  but  do  not  gentlemen  know  that  war  prices 
cannot  be  kept  up  forever?  Nothing  but  the  extraordinary 
calamities  of  war  can  produce  such  prices  as  we  knew  from 
1862  to  1870.  To  our  foreign  and  domestic  markets  was  added 
the  war  market.  War  sat  like  a  grim  monster,  swallowing  up 
the  accumulated  wealth  of  the  country.  More  than  a  million 
men  were  taken  out  of  the  ranks  of  producers  and  added  to 
the  ranks  of  consumers,  and  prices  went  up ;  but  does  any 
body  dream  that  these  prices  could  be  kept  up  forever,  after 
the  soldiers  were  mustered  out,  and  the  war  had  closed,  and 
business  had  begun  to  resume  the  normal  level  of  peace?  O, 


506          REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW. 

no,  gentlemen,  it  was  inevitable  that  the  country  must  come 
down  from  the  level  of  war  prices ;  and  the  attempt  to  prevent 
it  is  to  fight  against  fate.  Unless  we  bring  ourselves  steadily 
and  surely,  by  strong  courage  and  the  guidance  of  law,  back  to 
resumption,  we  shall  reach  that  level  by  a  disastrous  fall;  but 
down  to  it  we  must  come. 

I  do  not  undervalue  the  greenback  or  its  great  services  to 
the  country ;  but  when  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  spoke 
of  the  greenback  as  being  the  thing  that  put  down  the  rebellion, 
I  thought  that,  if  I  had  been  on  the  Rebel  side,  I  should  have 
said :  "  We  had  a  much  more  liberal  supply  of  paper  money 
than  you  had;  why  did  it  not  put  you  down?  Our  money  was 
better  than  yours  in  one  respect;  ours  set  a  day  of  resumption, 
which  was  six  months  after  the  independence  of  the  Confederate 
States  should  be  acknowledged."  I  think,  sir,  that  those  gen 
tlemen  who  are  familiar  with  the  financial  history  of  the  Con 
federacy  will  not  join  the  gentleman  in  his  eulogy  on  a  paper 
currency  cut  loose  from  the  coin  standard. 

Our  country  needs,  not  only  a  national,  but  an  international 
currency.  Let  me  state  a  fact  of  vast  importance  in  this  dis 
cussion.  The  yearly  foreign  trade  of  this  country  —  its  exports 
and  imports  —  amounts  to  $1,500,000,000  in  value;,  and  every 
dollar  of  that  trade  must  be  transacted  in  coin.  We  cannot 
help  ourselves.  Every  article  of  export  that  we  send  abroad 
is  measured  by  and  sold  for  coin.  Every  article  of  import  we 
must  pay  for  in  coin.  We  must  translate  these  coin  prices  into 
our  currency;  and  every  fluctuation  in  the  value  of  the  green 
back  falls  upon  us,  and  not  upon  the  countries  with  which  we 
trade.  Therefore  the  commercial  interests  of  America  demand 
that  the  international  and  national  value  of  money  shall  be  one, 
so  that  what  is  a  dollar  in  Ohio  shall  be  a  dollar  the  world  over. 
Our  money  must  be  international  as  well  as  national,  unless  we 
wish  to  isolate  this  country  and  have  no  commerce  on  the  sea. 

The  trouble  with  our  greenback  dollar  is  this :  it  has  two  dis 
tinct  functions,  one  a  purchasing  power,  and  the  other  a  debt- 
paying  power.  Its  debt-paying  power  is  equal  to  one  hundred 
cents,  private  debt.  A  greenback  dollar  will  by  law  discharge 
one  hundred  cents  of  old  private  debt.  But  no  law  can  give 
it  purchasing  power  in  the  markets  of  the  world,  unless  it  repre 
sents  a  known  standard  of  coin  value.  Now,  what  we  want  is 
that  these  two  qualities  of  the  greenback  dollar  shall  be  made 


REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW. 


507 


equal,  —  its  debt-paying  power  and  its  general  purchasing  power. 
When  these  are  equal,  the  problem  of  our  currency  is  solved, 
and  not  till  then. 

We  who  defend  the  resumption  act  propose  not  to  destroy 
the  greenback,  but  to  dignify  it,  to  glorify  it.  The  law  that 
we  defend  does  not  destroy  it,  but  preserves  its  volume  at 
$300,000,000,  and  makes  it  equal  to  and  convertible  into  coin. 
I  admit  that  the  law  is  not  entirely  free  from  ambiguity.  But 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who  has  the  execution  of  the 
law,  declares  that  Section  3579  of  the  Revised  Statutes  is  in  full 
force,  namely :  "  When  any  United  States  notes  are  returned  to 
the  Treasury,  they  may  be  reissued,  from  time  to  time,  as  the 
exigencies  of  the  public  interest  may  require."  Although  I  do 
not  believe  in  keeping  greenbacks  as  a  permanent  currency  in 
the  United  States,  although  I  do  not  myself  believe  in  the  gov 
ernment's  becoming  a  permanent  banker,  yet  I  am  willing,  for 
one,  that,  in  order  to  prevent  the  shock  to  business  which  gen 
tlemen  fear,  the  $300,000,006  of  greenbacks  shall  be  allowed  to 
remain  in  circulation  at  par,  as  long  as  the  wants  of  trade  show 
manifestly  that  it  is  needed.  Now,  is  that  a  great  contrac 
tion?  Is.it  a  contraction  at  all?  Why,  gentlemen,  when  you 
have  brought  your  greenback  dollar  up  two  and  one  half  cents 
higher  in  value,  you  will  have  added  to  your  volume  of  money 
$200,000,000  of  gold  coin  which  cannot  circulate  until  green 
backs  are  brought  to  par.  Let  those  who  are  afraid  of  contrac 
tion  consider  this  fact,  and  answer  it. 

Summing  it  all  up  in  a  word,  the  struggle  now  pending  in 
this  House  is,  on  the  one  hand,  to  make  the  greenback  better, 
and,  on  the  other,  to  make  it  worse.  The  resumption  act  is 
making  it  better  every  day.  Repeal  that  act,  and  you  make 
it  indefinitely  worse.  In  the  name  of  every  man  who  wants  his 
own  when  he  has  earned  it,  I  demand  that  we  shall  not  make 
the  wages  of  the  poor  man  shrivel  in  his  hands  after  he  has 
earned  them,  but  that  his  money  shall  be  made  better  and  bet 
ter,  until  the  ploughholder's  money  is  as  good  as  the  bond 
holder's  money,  and  there  is  no  longer  one  money  for  the  rich 
and  another  for  the  poor. 

This  is  the  era  of  pacification.  We  believe  in  the  pacifica 
tion  of  the  country.  That  is,  we  seek  to  pass  out  of  the  storm- 
centre  of  war  that  raged  over  this  country  so  long,  and  enter 
the  calm  circle  of  peace.  We  believe  in  the  equality  of  States, 


5o8          REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW. 

and  the  equality  of  citizens  before  the  law.  In  these  we  have 
made  great  progress.  Let  us  take  one  step  further.  Let  us 
have  equality  of  dollars  before  the  law,  so  that  the  trinity  of 
our  political  creed  shall  be  equal  States,  equal  men,  and  equal 
dollars  throughout  the  Union.  When  these  three  are  realized, 
we  shall  have  achieved  the  complete  pacification  of  our  country. 

We  are  bound  by  three  great  reasons  to  maintain  the  resump 
tion  of  specie  payments.  First,  because  the  sanctity  of  the  pub 
lic  faith  requires  it;  second,  because  the  material  prosperity  of 
the  country  demands  it;  and,  third,  because  our  future  pros 
perity  demands  that  agitation  shall  cease,  and  that  the  country 
shall  find  a  safe  and  permanent  basis  for  financial  peace.  The 
conditions  are  now  all  in  our  favor.  The  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  tells  us  in  his  report,  laid  upon  our  table  this  morn 
ing,  that  he  has  $66,000,000  of  gold  coin,  unpledged  for  any 
other  purpose,  waiting  as  a  reserve  for  the  day  of  resumption. 
He  is  adding  to  that  stock  at  the  rate  of  $5,000,000  a  month. 
Our  surplus  revenue  of  $35,000,000  a  year  will  all  be  added  to 
this  reserve.  Foreign  exchange  is  now  in  our  favor.  We  are 
selling  to  other  nations  almost  $200,000,000  a  year  more  than 
we  are  buying.  All  these  elements  are  with  us.  Our  harvests 
are  more  bountiful  than  ever  before.  The  nation  is  on  the 
wave  of  returning  prosperity.  Everywhere  business  is  reviving, 
and  there  is  no  danger  except  from  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States.  Here  is  the  storm-centre ;  here  is  the  point  of  peril.  If 
we  can  pass  this  peril,  and  not  commit  ourselves  to  the  danger 
ous  act  now  threatened,  we  shall  soon  see  resumption  complete. 

I  notice  that  gentlemen  do  not  move  to  strike  out  the  first 
section  of  the  resumption  act.  Why?  Two  years  ago  my  col 
league,  in  his  debate  in  Ohio  with  Governor  Woodford,  laughed 
at  silver  resumption,  so  far  as  the  fractional  currency  was  con 
cerned,  as  absurd  and  impossible.  He  spurned  the  proposition 
to  destroy  our  paper  scrip,  which  cost  but  little,  and  replace  it 
with  silver  change,  which  had  some  value.  He  argued  that 
every  silver  coin  issued  would  be  hidden  away,  and  none  would 
go  into  circulation.  But  since  that  debate  silver  resumption 
under  the  first  section  of  the  act  is  completed,  except  that  we 
have  not  yet  been  able  to  find  all  of  the  old  scrip,  so  lazily  do 
the  people  exercise  their  right  of  redemption.  But  gentlemen 
think  that  now,  if  we  resume  under  this  section,  the  greenbacks 
will  all  be  taken  up. 


REPEAL    OF  THE  RESUMPTION  LAW.          509 

MR.  EWING.  In  the  debate  with  Governor  Woodford  in  1875  I  did 
make  the  statement  to  which  the  gentleman  refers.  But  that  was  be 
fore  the  people  of  this  country,  or,  I  presume,  the  people  of  the  world 
generally,  knew  of  the  furtive  and  rascally  act  of  demonetization  of  silver 
in  the  adoption  of  our  Revised  Statutes.  It  was  before  the  immense  fall 
of  silver.  It  was  when  the  silver  dollar  was  at  a  high  premium  over  the 
greenback  dollar.  Speaking  from  conditions  then  existing,  and  the  price 
of  silver  at  that  time,  the  statement  was  reasonable .  that  the  fractional 
silver  currency  would  be  taken  up  and  sold,  and  not  go  into  general 
circulation. 

The  trouble  with  the  statement  of  my  friend  is,  that,  the  frac 
tional  silver  currency  being  twelve  per  cent  below  the  value  of 
the  silver  dollar,  there  was  not  the  slightest  danger,  at  the  time 
he  speaks  of,  that  the  silver  change  after  being  issued  would 
pass  out  of  circulation.  He  did  not  believe  in  silver  resump 
tion  until  that  metal  became  so  depreciated  as  to  be  worth  much 
less  than  paper. 

Gentlemen  think  there  is  danger  that  the  people  will  present 
all  their  greenbacks  and  demand  the  coin,  if  resumption  is  en 
forced.  Let  us  see.  Remember  how  slow  they  have  been  in 
giving  up  their  scrip.  Suppose  that  a  farmer  in  one  of  your 
Eastern  States  sells  his  farm  for  $10,000.  He  wants  to  remove 
to  the  Great  West.  He  gets  ten  greenbacks  of  the  denomina 
tion  of  $  1,000  each.  This  is  easy  to  carry;  he  can  put  it  in 
his  vest  pocket.  Do  you  think,  as  a  matter  of  convenience,  he 
will  go  to  the  Assistant  Treasurer  in  New  York  and  get  for 
those  greenbacks  forty  pounds'  weight  of  gold  coin  to  carry  in 
his  pockets,  or,  if  the  silver  dollar  should  be  restored,  six  hun 
dred  and  forty  pounds  of  silver?  No,  gentlemen;  the  moment 
your  greenback  is  equal  to  gold,  it  is  better  than  gold,  for  it  is 
more  convenient;  and  it  will  remain  in  circulation  until  the 
business  of  the  country  demands  its  withdrawal. 

In  conclusion,  Mr.  Speaker,  if  any  of  the  amendments  offered 
to  this  bill  will  make  resumption  more  safe,  more  certain,  and 
will  more  carefully  protect  the  business  interests  of  the  country, 
such  amendments  shall  have  my  vote ;  but  any  measure  that 
takes  back  the  promise,  that  gives  up  what  we  have  gained, 
that  sets  us  afloat  on  the  wild  waves  from  which  we  have  so 
nearly  escaped,  I  will  oppose  to  the  utmost,  confidently  trusting 
to  the  future  for  the  vindication  of  my  judgment. 


THE   NEW   SCHEME  OF   AMERICAN 
FINANCE. 

SPEECH  DELIVERED   IN   THE   HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 

MARCH  6,  1878. 


ON  the  5th  of  March,  1878,  Mr.  W.  D.  Kelley,  of  Pennsylvania, 
made  a  lengthy  speech  in  reply  to  Mr.  Garfi eld's  speech  on  the  repeal 
of  the  Resumption  Act,  delivered  on  November  1 6  of  the  previous  year. 
The  next  day  Mr.  Garfield  replied  to  Mr.  Kelley.  Certain  ad  hominem 
portions  of  his  reply  are  here  omitted  as  not  possessing  permanent  value 
or  interest,  although  they  gave  great  force  and  piquancy  to  the  speech 
when  delivered.  The  House  was  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the 
state  of  the  Union. 


"  Capital  may  be  produced  by  industry,  and  accumulated  by  economy ;  but  jugglers  only 
will  propose  to  create  it  by  legerdemain  tricks  with  paper."  —  THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

u  If  there  be,  in  regard  to  currency,  one  truth  which  the  united  experience  of  the  whole 
commercial  world  has  established,  I  had  supposed  it  to  be  that  emissions  of  paper  money  con 
stituted  the  very  worst  of  all  conceivable  species  of  currency."  —  HENRY  CLAY. 

MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —  It  is  not  of  my  seeking  or  according 
to  my  desire  that  any  interruption  of  work  on  the  appro 
priation  bills  is  made  by  general  debate ;  but  the  House,  by 
unanimous  consent,  allowed  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania 
two  hours  and  a  half  yesterday,  which  he  devoted  to  criti 
cism  of  a  speech  which  I  made  one  hundred  and  nine  days  ago 
against  the  repeal  of  the  Resumption  Act;  and  if  I  take  an 
hour  to  reply,  I  can  hardly  be  charged  with  a  wanton  delay  of 
the  public  business.  It  is  of  consequence,  not  only  to  me,,  but 
to  all  those  who  have  an  interest  in  these  subjects,  to  know 
whether  the  main  statements  on  which  my  former  speech  was 
based  are  trustworthy,  and  the  conclusions  warranted  by  the 
facts.  To  these  alone  I  shall  invite  the  attention  of  the  House. 


NE  W  SCHEME   OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE.       5 1 1 

I  am  laboring  under  the  same  embarrassment  that  I  was 
under  on  the  i6th  of  November,  when  I  replied  to  some  points 
made  by  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania.  His  speech  then 
was  withheld  from  the  Record,  and  I  was  compelled  to  reply  to 
it  as  I  remembered  it.  And  now,  after  the  speech,  most  if 
not  all  of  which  was  in  manuscript,  and  for  aught  I  know  has 
been  many  weeks  ready  for  delivery,  was  read  deliberately  to 
the  House,  it  does  not  appear  in  the  Record  of  this  morning; 
and  I  am  again  compelled  to  trust  to  my  memory,  to  the  few 
notes  I  made  while  he  read  it,  and  to  the  brief  notices  contained 
in  the  morning  papers.  If  I  shall  in  any  way  misrepresent  his 
statements,  the  fault  is  mainly  his  own.  I  am  embarrassed  now, 
as  I  was  also  in  November,  by  the  fact  that  the  gentleman 
himself  is  not  here ;  for  I  dislike  to  refer  to  a  member  in  his 
absence.  But  he  sat  in  the  room  of  the  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means  for  two  hours  this  morning,  and  he  knew  that  I  had 
the  floor,  and  that  I  must  speak  now  if  at  all. 

The  first  forty  minutes  of  his  speech  was  devoted  to  attack 
ing  a  proposition  of  mine  which  was  incidental  and  not  vitally 
essential  to  my  argument.  The  line  of  my  argument  was  this : 
that  it  was  generally  conceded  that  1860  was  a  time  of  peace 
and  of  general  prosperity  in  this  country;  that  there  was  fair 
employment  for  labor  and  fair  remuneration  for  the  laborer; 
that  it  was  an  era  of  free  banking,  and  that  the  volume  of  the 
currency  was  $207,000,000,  —  the  largest  which  the  country 
had  ever  had,  except  for  a  brief  period  in  the  panic  year  of 
1857.  I  drew  the  conclusion,  that  it  was  incumbent  on  gentle 
men  who  say  that  we  have  not  now  enough  currency  to  show 
how,  after  all  that  has  occurred  to  us  in  years  past,  — the  present 
depression  of  prices  (which  are  nearly,  if  not  altogether,  as  low 
as  in  1860),  and  the  present  non-occupation  of  laborers,  —  three 
times  as  much  currency  as  we  then  had  is  still  insufficient. 

That  was  the  drift  of  my  argument ;  and  upon  the  prelimi 
nary  declaration  the  gentleman  spent  forty  minutes  to  show  that 
1860  was  one  of  the  most  distressful  years,  except,  perhaps,  the 
present,  that  this  country  has  ever  known.  In  the  first  place, 
he  denied  that  it  was  a  year  of  peace,  and  for  three  very  curi 
ous  reasons.  First,  that  during  the  previous  year  seventeen 
men  had  invaded  Virginia  at  Harper's  Ferry !  Second,  that 
it  was  the  year  of  the  Presidential  election !  Third,  that  the 
year  afterward  we  had  a  war !  Well,  if  these  three  facts  prove 


512       NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE. 

that  1860  was  not  a  year  of  peace,  then  the  gentleman  is  enti 
tled  to  say  that  our  currency  was  adjusted  to  a  war  basis  during 
that  year.  But  he  denies  my  statement  that  1860  was  a  year  of 
general  prosperity,  and  asserts  that  it  was  a  year  of  great  busi 
ness  depression.  He  bases  this  opinion  upon  the  propositions, 
that  in  1859  there  was  a  destructive  frost  in  some  of  the  grain- 
growing  sections  of  the  country ;  that  some  iron  men  say  it  was 
a  disastrous  year  to  the  producers  and  manufacturers  of  iron ; 
that  there  were  large  sheriff's  sales  in  Philadelphia;  and  that 
the  national  government  was  compelled  to  negotiate  a  loan  to 
meet  its  expenditures.  These  propositions  and  the  opinion  of 
Mr.  Carey  are,  I  believe,  the  main  grounds  on  which  he  relies 
for  overturning  my  position. 

For  the  purpose  of  my  speech,  I  might  have  taken  the  whole 
decade  from  1850  to  1860  as  the  base-line  from  which  to  meas 
ure  the  relative  amount  of  currency  needed  before  the  war  and 
now;  but  I  chose  the  year  1860  as  the  last  year  of  peace  pre 
ceding  the  period  of  war  and  inflation.  I  considered  it  a  fact, 
admitted  by  almost  every  one,  that  1860  was  a  year  of  very  gen 
eral  prosperity;  but  as  the  gentleman  denies  it,  I  will  enumerate 
briefly  a  few  of  the  grounds  on  which  I  made  my  statement. 

In  1860  the  burdens  of  national  taxation  were  light.  All  our 
revenues,  including  loans,  amounted  only  to  $76,000,000.  Our 
expenditures  were  $77,000,000,  and  our  whole  public  debt  but 
$65,000,000.  The  tonnage  of  our  ships  upon  the  seas  was 
5 >3 5 3)868  tons,  which  was  more  by  140,000  tons  than  in  any 
other  year  of  our  history,  before  or  since.  Two  thirds  of  our  im 
ports  were  carried  in  American  bottoms,  as  were  also  more  than 
two  thirds  of  our  exports.  Our  exports  that  year  reached  the 
aggregate  value  of  $400,000,000,  which  was  $43,500,000  more 
than  during  any  previous  year.  Our  imports  were  $362,000,000, 
decidedly  more  than  any  previous  year.  And  I  make  the  state 
ment  on  the  authority  of  David  A.  Wells,  that  in  1860  we  were 
exporting  to  foreign  countries  more  American  manufactures 
than  in  any  other  year  of  our  history.  In  a  table  printed  in  the 
Report  of  the  Special  Commissioner  of  the  Revenue  for  I869,1 
it  appears  that  in  1860  there  came  to  this  county  179,000  emi 
grants, —  58,000  more  than  during  the  preceding  year. 

That  year  4,8 1 9  patents  were  issued  at  the  Patent-Office,  1,100 
more  than  the  average  number  for  the  three  years  preceding. 

1  Page  10. 


NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE.       513 

In  that  year  we  built  1,846  miles  of  railroad,  —  a  slight  increase 
above  the  preceding  year.  The  people  of  the  United  States 
consumed  332,000  tons  of  sugar  in  1857,  and  in  1860  they  con 
sumed  the  enormous  amount  of  464,000  tons,  —  more  than  in 
any  year  of  our  previous  history.  The  mean*  annual  con 
sumption  of  tea  in  the  United  States,  which  was  16,000,000 
pounds  in  the  decade  ending  with  1850,  was  27,000,000  pounds 
in  the  decade  ending  with  1860.  This  certainly  is  an  indication 
that  the  people  had  something  with  which  to  buy. 

From  1831  to  1851  the  cotton  crop  of  the  United  States 
ranged  from  one  million  to  two  and  one  third  millions  of  bales 
per  annum.  In  the  year  1860  it  rose  to  the  enormous  amount 
of  4,675,770  bales;  almost  1,000,000  more  bales  than  were 
grown  in  the  United  States  in  any  previous  year  of  our  history. 
I  find  from  the  census  reports  that  in  1850  our  wheat  crop 
was  100,000,000  bushels,  and  that  in  1860  it  was  173,000,000 
bushels.  In  1850  we  raised  592,000,000  bushels  of  corn  ;  in  1860, 
838,000,000  bushels;  while  in  1870  we  raised  but  760,000,000 
bushels.  The  crop  of  1860  was  78,000,000  bushels  more  than 
that  of  1870,  and  346,000,000  bushels  more  than  in  1850.  In 
the  cases  of  several  other  of  the  great  cereals,  there  was  a 
largely  increased  production.  The  crop  of  barley  for  1860  was 
three  times  that  of  1850.  The  crops  of  rye  and  buckwheat  in 
1860  exceeded  those  of  1870,  as  well  as  those  of  1850. 

In  1 850  the  total  value  of  American  farms  was  $3,250,000,000; 
in  1860  it  was  $6,645,000,000,  an  increase  of  104  per  cent,  while 
the  population  increased  but  35  per  cent  during  that  decade. 
The  value  of  farming  implements  in  1850,  was  $151,000,000; 
in  1860,  $246,000,000, — an  increase  of  63  per  cent;  while  dur 
ing  the  next  decade  it  increased  but  42  per  cent.  From  the 
statistics  of  manufactures  given  in  the  census  I  find  that  in  1850 
957,000  hands  were  employed;  in  1860,  1,311,000.  In  1850  the 
products  of  manufactures  amounted  to  $553,000,000;  in  1860, 
to  $1,009,000,000,  —  an  increase  of  82  per  cent.  But  the  gen 
tleman  tells  us  it  was  a  year  of  unusual  distress. 

He  spoke  of  the  condition  of  the  iron  interest  in  1860.  Let 
me  tell  him  what  the  Iron  and  Steel  Association  say  in  their 
report  for  1877.  I  find  that  in  1860  there  were  brought  from 
Lake  Superior  to  our  mills  in  the  East  116,000  tons  of  ore, 
51,000  tons  more  than  in  any  other  year  of  our  history.  I  learn 
that  the  production  of  anthracite  coal  in  Pennsylvania  in  1860 

VOL.  ii.  33 


5 14      NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE. 

amounted  to  9,807,000  tons,  almost  800,000  tons  more  than  in 
any  previous  year.  I  find  that  the  production  of  bituminous 
coal  and  coke  for  1860  amounted  to  122,000  tons,  which  was 
38,000  tons  more  than  the  greatest  product  of  any  preceding 
year.1  And  how  much  pig-iron  did  we  produce  in  that  year? 
I  find  a  speech  made  here  by  William  D.  Kelley,  January  u, 
18/0,  in  which  the  product  for  seven  or  eight  years  is  given  ; 
and,  according  to  this  speech,  in  the  year  1860  the  total  product 
of  pig-iron  in  this  country  was  913,000  tons.2  This  was  130,000 
tons  more  than  the  average  of  the  six  preceding  years ;  yet  he 
now  holds  that  1860  was  a  year  of  unusual  distress. 

This  is  an  old  debate  between  the  gentleman  from  Pennsyl 
vania  and  myself,  —  a  debate  that  we  had  eight  years  ago,  when, 
to  justify  his  extreme  views  on  the  tariff",  (which,  I  do  not  hesi 
tate  to  say,  have  done  the  cause  of  real  protection  more  harm 
than  the  doctrines  of  the  extreme  free-traders,)  it  was  necessary 
for  him  to  make  it  appear  that,  because  we  then  had  a  low  tariff, 
1860  was  a  year  of  great  distress.  We  can  find  ample  ground 
for  the  sufficient  protection  of  American  manufactures  without 
distorting  the  history  of  our  country.  The  gentleman's  position 
lays  him  open  to  this  dangerous  reply,  that  if  the  low  tariff  and 
insufficient  volume  of  currency  of  1860  caused  the  alleged  dis 
tress  of  that  year,  how  will  he  account  for  what  he  admits  to  be 
the  great  distress  of  1877,  with  a  much  higher  tariff  and  three 
times  the  currency? 

The  fact  is,  Mr.  Chairman,  the  decade  from  1850  to  1860  was 
one  of  peace  and  general  prosperity.  The  aggregate  volume  of 
real  and  personal  property  in  the  United  States  in  1850  was,  in 
round  numbers,  $7,135,000,000;  in  1860  it  was  $16,159,000,000, 
an  increase  of  126  per  cent,  while  the  population  increased  but 
35  per  cent.  Yet,  to  suit  a  theory  of  finance,  we  arc  told  that 
1860  was  a  year  of  great  distress  and  depression  of  business, 
equalled  only  by  the  distress  of  the  present  year.  I  hold  that 
the  facts  I  have  recited  establish,  so  far  as  anything  can  be  es 
tablished  by  statistics,  that  the  year  1860  was  a  year  not  only  of 
general  peace,  but  of  very  general  prosperity,  in  the  United 
States;  and  the  fact  that  there  were  frosts  in  some  fields  the 
year  before,  sheriff's  sales  in  Philadelphia,  and  unemployed  la 
borers  near  some  of  the  mills,  not  only  does  not  overturn  the 

1  Pages  12,  20,  28,  47. 

2  Speeches,  Addresses,  and  Letters,  p.  302  (Philadelphia,  1872). 


NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE.       515 

proofs  I  have  submitted,  but  these  proofs  show  how  limited 
were  the  disasters  of  which  the  gentleman  speaks. 

The  gentleman's  second  point  was  to  deny  the  correctness 
of  my  statement  that  no  President  from  the  days  of  Washing 
ton  till  now,  and  no  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  from  the  days 
of  Hamilton  till  now,  had  ever  given  his  adhesion  to  the  doc 
trine  of  irredeemable  paper  money.  My  statement  encountered 
the  whirlwind  of  his  condemnation.  And  he  deemed  it  a  suf 
ficient  answer  to  say  that  President  Washington  and  his  great 
Secretary,  Hamilton,  themselves  devised  a  bill  establishing  a 
United  States  Bank;  that  Congress  passed  it  and  Washington 
signed  it;  that  the  notes  of  that  bank  were  made  a  legal  tender; 
and  that  thus  Washington  and  Hamilton  gave  the  people  a  paper 
currency  which  would  answer  their  purpose  if  all  the  silver  and 
gold  should  be  carried  out  of  the  country.  The  gentleman  will 
find  a  perfect  and  overwhelming  answer  to  this  argument  if  he 
will  read  the  tenth  section  of  that  very  law.  It  is  in  these 
words :  "  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  the  bills  or  notes  of 
the  said  corporation,  originally  made  payable,  or  which  shall 
have  become  payable  on  demand,  in  gold  and  silver  coin,  shall 
be  receivable  in  all  payments  to  the  United  States."  *  That  is, 
so  long  as  the  notes  of  the  United  States  Bank  were  payable  on 
demand  in  gold  and  silver  coin,  so  long,  and  only  so  long,  were 
they  receivable  in  all  payments  to  the  United  States.  They 
were  not  a  legal  tender  for  private  debts,  but  only  for  debts  due 
to  the  United  States,  and  then  only  when  they  were  exchange 
able  for  coin.  That  first  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  created 
by  hard-money  men ;  the  law  which  the  gentleman  cites  was  a 
hard-money  law ;  and  he  can  find  in  it  no  comfort  for  his  doc 
trine  of  unrestricted,  irredeemable  paper  money.  I  now  proceed 
to  make  good  my  statement  that  the  fathers  of  the  Constitution 
and  our  Presidents  and  Secretaries  of  the  Treasury  approved  of 
no  currency  except  such  as  was  exchangeable  for  coin,  at  the 
will  of  the  holder  proper. 

In  the  Constitutional  Convention,  as  reported  in  the  Madison 
Papers,  Gouverneur  Morris  moved  to  strike  out  the  clause 
which  authorized  Congress  to  "  emit  bills  on  the  credit  of  the 
United  States."  Mr.  Ellsworth  "  thought  this  was  a  favorable 
moment  to  shut  and  bar  the  door  against  paper  money.  The 
mischiefs  of  the  various  experiments  which  have  been  made 

1  i  Statutes  at  Large,  196. 


5i6      NEW  SCHEME   OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE. 

were  now  fresh  in  the  public  mind,  and  had  excited  the  disgust 
of  all  the  respectable  part  of  America."  Mr.  Reed  "  thought 
the  words,  if  not  struck  out,  would  be  as  alarming  as  the  mark 
of  the  beast  in  Revelation."  Mr.  Langdon  "  had  rather  reject 
the  whole  plan  than  retain  the  three  words  '  and  emit  bills.'  " 
The  words  were  stricken  out  by  the  vote  of  nine  States  to 
two.  Mr.  Madison  voted  to  strike  out  the  words,  but  held 
that  their  omission  "  would  not  disable  the  government  from  the 
use  of  public  notes  as  far  as  they  could  be  safe  and  proper,  and 
would  only  cut  off  the  pretext  for  a  paper  currency,  and  par 
ticularly  for  making  the  bills  a  tender  for  either  public  or  private 
debts."  l 

In  writing  to  Thomas  Jefferson  from  Mount  Vernon,  under 
date  of  August  I,  1785,  Washington  says:  "  Some  other  States 
are,  in  my  opinion,  falling  into  very  foolish  and  wicked  plans 
of  emitting  paper  money.  I  cannot,  however,  give  up  my  hopes 
and  expectations  that  we  shall  erelong  adopt  a  more  just  and 
liberal  system  of  policy."  2 

John  Adams  said,  in  a  letter  to  John  Jay,  July  30,  1786:  "  I 
cannot  but  lament  from  my  inmost  soul  that  lust  for  paper 
money  which  appears  in  some  parts  of  the  United  States; 
there  will  never  be  any  uniform  rule,  if  there  is  a  sense  of 
justice,  nor  any  clear  credit,  public  or  private,  nor  any  settled 
confidence  in  public  men  or  measures,  until  paper  money  is 
done  away."3 

In  the  very  letter  of  Alexander  Hamilton  to  which  the  gen 
tleman  refers,  on  the  subject  of  establishing  a  United  States 
Bank,  that  great  Secretary  uses  these  words :  — 

"  The  emitting  of  paper  money  by  the  authority  of  the  government  is 
wisely  prohibited  to  the  individual  States  by  the  national  Constitution ; 
and  the  spirit  of  that  prohibition  ought  not  to  be  disregarded  by  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States.  Though  paper  emissions,  under  a  general 
authority,  might  have  some  advantages  not  applicable,  and  be  free  from 
some  disadvantages  which  are  applicable,  to  the  like  emissions  by  the 
States  separately,  yet  they  are  of  a  nature  so  liable  to  abuse,  —  and  it  may 
even  be  affirmed,  so  certain  of  being  abused,  —  that  the  wisdom  of  the 
government  will  be  shown  in  never  trusting  itself  with  the  use  of  so  se 
ducing  and  dangerous  an  expedient.  In  times  of  tranquillity,  it  might 
have  no  ill  consequence."  4 

1  Elliott's  Debates,  Vol.  V.  pp.  434,  435.  2  Writings,  etc.,  Vol.  IX.  p.  186. 

8  Life  and  Works,  Vol.  VIII.  p.  410. 

4  Works  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  Vol.  III.  p.  124. 


NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE.       517 

This  is  not  the  opinion  of  a  paper-money  man.  The  gen 
tleman  has  sought  to  make  it  appear  that  Thomas  Jefferson 
favored  a  paper  currency  not  redeemable  in  coin,  and  he 
commends  me  to  the  sixth  volume  of  Jefferson's  Works.  I 
will  read  him  a  passage  from  one  of  the  three  long  letters  to 
Eppes :  "  Capital  may  be  produced  by  industry  and  accumu 
lated  by  economy;  but  jugglers  only  will  propose  to  create  it  by 
legerdemain  tricks  with  paper."  *  A  single  fact  will  explain  all 
the  quotations  from  Jefferson  made  by  the  gentleman.  When 
the  Eppes  letters  were  written,  the  United  States  was  at  war 
with  England,  with  no  friendly  nation  from  whom  to  obtain 
loans,  and  our  treasury  was  empty.  Mr.  Jefferson  had  long 
been  opposed  to  the  State  banks,  and  he  saw  that  by  suppressing 
them  and  issuing  treasury  notes,  with  or  without  interest,  the 
government  could  accomplish  two  things,  destroy  State-bank 
currency,  and  obtain  a  forced  loan  in  circulating  notes.  And 
so  he  said  in  his  letter  to  Eppes,  of  June  24,  i8i3.2  From  this 
letter  it  appears  that  Jefferson  favored  the  issue  of  treasury 
notes  to  help  the  country  through  a  war;  but  he  insisted  that 
they  should  be  wholly  retired  on  the  return  of  peace. 

[Here  Mr.  Garfield  read  an  extract  from  the  letter  to  Eppes.  See  the 
paper  entitled  "The  Currency  Conflict,"  ante,  p.  256.] 

The  gentleman  has  made  quotations  from  Madison.  I  refer 
him  to  a  letter  addressed  to  Jefferson,  dated  August  12,  1786,  in 
which  the  evils  of  irredeemable  paper  money  are  strikingly 
stated,  closing  with  these  words  :  "  The  value  of  money  consists 
in  the  uses  it  will  serve.  Specie  will  serve  all  the  uses  of  paper; 
paper  will  not  serve  one  of  the  essential  uses  of  specie."3 

Speaking  of  currency  redeemable  in  specie,  Andrew  Jackson 
said:  "There  never  was,  nor  ever  could  be,  use  for  any  other 
kind  except  for  speculators  and  gamblers  in  stock ;  and  this  to 
the  utter  ruin  of  the  labor  and  morals  of  a  country.  A  specie 
currency  gives  life  and  action  to  the  producing  classes,  on  which 
the  prosperity  of  all  is  founded." 

James  Buchanan  declared  :  "  The  evils  of  a  redundant  paper 
circulation  are  now  manifest  to  every  eye.  It  alternately  raises 
and  sinks  the  value  of  every  man's  property.  It  makes  a  beg 
gar  of  the  man  to-morrow  who  is  indulging  in  dreams  of  wealth 

1  Works,  Vol.  VI.  p.  241.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  139,  141. 

8  Writings,  etc.,  Vol.  I.  p.  245. 


518       NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE. 

to-day.  It  converts  the  business  of  society  into  a  mere  lottery ; 
whilst  those  who  distribute  the  prizes  are  wholly  irresponsible 
to  the  people.  When  the  collapse  comes,  as  come  it  must, 
it  casts  laborers  out  of  employment,  crushes  manufacturers 
and  merchants,  and  ruins  thousands  of  honest  and  industrious 
citizens."  1 

The  records  of  our  Secretaries  of  the  Treasury  are  equally 
full  and  explicit.  They  concur  with  Secretary  Guthrie,  who 
said  in  one  of  his  annual  reports :  "  The  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  was  framed  by  the  men  who  had  felt  all  the  evils 
thereof  [of  paper  money]  ;  and  when  provisions  were  inserted 
in  that  instrument  that  no  State  should  emit  bills  of  credit,  nor 
make  anything  but  gold  and  silver  a  tender  in  payment  of  debts, 
and  the  coinage  of  money  was  given  to  the  general  government, 
they  believed  they  had  provided  for  a  hard-money  currency 
against  the  evils  of  a  depreciated  one." 

The  gentleman's  third  point  was  a  denial  of  my  statement 
that  the  legal-tender  law  was  passed  with  reluctance,  under  the 
pressure  of  overwhelming  necessity,  and  that  the  men  who  en 
acted  it,  from  Stevens  to  the  humblest  member  of  the  House, 
and  from  Fessenden  to  the  humblest  Senator,  were  at  that  time 
in  favor  of  returning  to  specie  payments  as  soon  as  possible,  and 
that  the  law  creating  greenbacks  provided  for  their  redemption. 
He  declared  that  my  statement  is  discredited  by  the  whole 
course  of  the  debates.  His  speech  burned  with  special  indig 
nation  because  I  mentioned  Thaddeus  Stevens  as  one  of  the 
distinguished  men  who,  in  1862,  believed  in  a  coin  standard. 
Let  me  read  a  sentence  from  Thaddeus  Stevens,  uttered  in  the 
midst  of  that  debate :  "  This  bill  is  a  measure  of  necessity,  not 
of  choice.  No  one  would  willingly  issue  paper  currency  not 
redeemable  on  demand,  and  make  it  a  legal  tender.  It  is 
never  desirable  to  depart  from  that  circulating  medium  which, 
by  the  common  consent  of  civilized  nations,  forms  the  stan 
dard  of  value."  Let  Mr.  Stevens's  own  words  answer  the  gen 
tleman. 

[Mr.  Garfield  also  read  from  Mr.  Fessenden  and  Mr.  Sumner,  of  the 
Senate,  to  the  same  effect.  See  the  paper  entitled  "  The  Currency  Con 
flict,"  ante,  pp.  248,  249,  for  the  same  quotations.] 

And  so  said  they  all ;   it  vvas  the  voice  of  the  Congress.     The 

1  Congressional  Debates,  Vol.  XIV.  Part  I.  p.  355. 


NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERfCAN  FINANCE.       519 

legal-tender  clause  passed  the  Senate  by  but  five  majority ;  with 
such  reluctance  did  the  men  of  1862  consent  to  make  anything 
a  legal  tender  but  gold  and  silver,  the  recognized  money  of  the 
world.  Their  speeches  are  full  of  the  purpose  to  return  to  that 
money  as  soon  as  the  necessities  of  the  war  would  allow. 

But  the  gentleman  denies  this.  Listen  to  the  declaration  of 
Secretary  Chase,  in  his  letter  of  January  20,  1862,  to  Thaddeus 
Stevens :  "  It  is  not  unknown  to  the  committee  that  I  have 
felt,  nor  do  I  wish  to  conceal  that  I  now  feel,  a  great  aversion  to 
making  anything  but  coin  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts. 
It  has  been  my  anxious  wish  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  such 
legislation."  Then,  speaking  of  the  necessity  of  passing  the 
bill,  he  points  out  that  its  saving  clause  is  found  in  "  the  pro 
visions  for  funding  these  notes  in  interest-bearing  bonds,"  and 
adds :  "  Such  legislation,  it  may  be  hoped,  will  divest  the  legal- 
tender  clause  of  the  bill  of  injurious  tendencies,  and  secure 
the  earliest  possible  return  to  a  sound  currency  of  coin  and 
promptly  convertible  notes."  In  his  annual  report  of  Decem 
ber  4,  1862,  he  argues  against  the  plan  of  increasing  the  vol 
ume  of  legal-tender  notes,  asserting  that  direct  issues  by  the 
government  are  always  dangerous.  He  recommends  the  estab 
lishment  of  the  national  banks,  and  then  says :  "  The  Secretary 
recommends,  therefore,  no  mere  paper-money  scheme,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  a  series  of  measures  looking  to  a  safe  and  gradual 
return  to  gold  and  silver  as  the  only  permanent  basis,  stan 
dard,  and  measure  of  values  recognized  by  the  Constitution, — 
between  which  and  an  irredeemable  paper  currency,  as  he  be 
lieves,  the  choice  is  now  to  be  made."  ] 

I  leave  it  to  the  judgment  of  the  House  whether  these  cita 
tions  do  not  amply  sustain  my  assertion,  which  the  gentleman 
attempts  to  controvert. 

The  next  point  which  the  gentleman  made,  and  in  which  he 
develops  his  favorite  theory  of  finance,  is  this.  He  denies  that 
greenbacks  are  a  debt;  he  denies  that  they  are  a  "forced  loan," 
and  he  challenges  with  all  the  emphasis  of  which  he  is  capable 
my  statement  that  they  were  so  recognized  by  the  leading  men 
at  that  time.  He  challenges  me  to  find  any  such  decision  of 
any  court  of  the  United  States,  or  of  any  State,  and  he  com 
pletes  the  vehement  denial  by  saying  that  if  any  one  in  1862 
had  called  the  greenbacks  a  "  forced  loan,"  the  statement  would 

1  Report  on  the  Finances,  p.  21. 


520       NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE. 

have  been  denounced  as  the  hissing  of  a  venomous  Copper 
head.  On  the  4th  of  December,  1862,  the  then  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  the  late  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States,  said  in 
his  annual  report,  that  when  receipts  do  not  equal  the  expendi 
tures,  the  government  "  may  create  a  debt  in  small  notes,  and 
these  notes  may  be  used  as  currency.  This  is  precisely  the  way 
in  which  the  existing  currency  of  [the]  United  States  is  supplied. 
That  portion  of  the  expenditure  not  met  by  the  revenue  or  by 
loans  has  been  met  by  the  issue  of  these  notes.  Debt  in  this 
form  has  been  substituted  for  various  debts  in  other  forms."  l 
Did  anybody  hiss  Secretary  Chase  in  1862  as  a  ''venomous 
Copperhead  "  for  saying  that  the  greenbacks  were  a  debt? 

More  than  this.  A  venerable  gentleman  from  Massachu 
setts,  Mr.  Thomas,  when  the  legal-tender  bill  was  under  debate 
and  about  to  pass,  said  he  "  regarded  the  legal-tender  clause  in 
the  bill  as  in  the  nature  of  a  forced  loan."  I  quote  these  words 
from  Spaulding's  "  Financial  History  of  the  War,"  2  —  the  very 
words  that  the  gentleman  turns  upon  rne  with  such  vehemence 
for  using;  yet  Thomas  was  not  hissed  as  a  "Copperhead"  for 
the  utterance. 

The  gentleman  holds  that  the  greenback  is  not  a  debt,  but  is 
money,  —  the  people's  money;  and  he  defies  me  to  find  any 
respectable  court  which  calls  the  greenback  a  "  forced  loan."  I 
refer  him  to  the  Court  of  Appeals  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
and  read  from  the  opinion  of  Justice  Marvin  of  that  court,  pro 
nounced  in  1863,  m  tne  case  °f  tne  Metropolitan  Bank  v.  Van 
Dyck.  "  The  issuing  and  paying  out  of  treasury  notes  "  — 
that  is  in  1863,  remember  —  "may  be  a  forced  loan  to  the 

government Call  the  issuing  of  these  treasury  notes 

borrowing  money  or  a  forced  loan,  and  the  quality  in  them, 
making  them  receivable  in  payment  of  all  debts,  enhances  their 
value,  and  enables  the  government  to  realize  from  them  a 
greater  amount  of  supplies."  3 

I  refer  him  to  a  decision,  rendered  also  in  1863,  by  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  New  York  in  the  case  of  Hague  v.  Powers,  in 
which  presiding  Justice  Smith  says :  — 

"  There  is  probably  not  a  government  in  Europe  which  has  not  been 
compelled  in  time  of  war  or  national  distress  to  suspend  specie  payments, 
and  make  forced  loans  of  the  people,  by  making  paper  promises  to  pay, 
in  some  form,  lawful  money  and  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts. 

1  Report  on  the  Finances,  p.  17.  2  Page  77.  8  13  Smith,  522,  523. 


NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE.       521 

....  Money  being  an  indispensable  agent,  and  necessary  to  carry  such 
powers  into  effect,  the  power  is  implied  to  command,  obtain,  and  secure 
it  by  any  practicable  means  known  or  practised  among  civilized  nations ; 
and  that  the  issue  of  treasury  notes,  making  them  a  legal  tender  in  pay 
ment  of  debts,  is  a  proper  and  lawful  means  to  that  end,  —  a  process  of 
borrowing  from  the  people,  or  making  from  them  a  forced  loan  to  meet 
the  governmental  necessities,  —  and  is  entirely  within  the  legitimate  power 
of  Congress,  as  the  sovereign  legislative  authority  of  the  nation."  * 

Now,  what  will  the  gentleman  say  to  his  taunting  challenge 
to  produce  anything  from  any  of  the  courts  calling  it  a  forced 
loan? 

But  I  do  not  need  to  go  into  the  courts  of  the  States  to  an 
swer  the  gentleman's  challenge.  I  read  from  the  opinion  of  our 
Supreme  Court  in  the  case  of  Bank  v.  Supervisors,  where  the 
Chief  Justice,  delivering  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  court, 
says :  "  These  notes  are  obligations  of  the  United  States. 
Their  name  imports  obligation.  Every  one  of  them  expresses 
upon  its  face  an  engagement  of  the  nation  to  pay  to  the  bearer 
a  certain  sum.  The  dollar  note  is  an  engagement  to  pay  a  dol 
lar,  and  the  dollar  intended  is  the  coined  dollar  of  the  United 
States ;  a  certain  quantity  in  weight  and  fineness  of  gold  or  sil 
ver,  authenticated  as  such  by  the  stamp  of  the  government."  '2 

But  the  gentleman  may  say  this  was  before  the  decision  which 
affirmed  the  validity  of  the  legal-tender  law.  I  will  read  from 
the  Legal -Tender  Cases,  in  the  discussion  of  which  you,  Mr. 
Chairman,3  bore  so  honorable  a  part.  Mr.  Justice  Strong,  de 
livering  the  opinion  of  the  court,  said,  and  I  wish  this  remem 
bered  in  answer  to  another  point  made  later  in  the  gentleman's 
speech :  "  We  do  not  rest  their  validity  upon  the  assertion  that 
their  emission  is  coinage,  or  any  regulation  of  the  value  of 
money;  nor  do  we  assert  that  Congress  may  make  anything 
which  has  no  value  money.  What  we  do  assert  is,  that  Con 
gress  has  power  to  enact  that  the  government's  promises  to  pay 
money  shall  be,  for  the  time  being,  equivalent  in  value  to  the 
representative  of  value  determined  by  the  coinage  acts,  or  to 
multiples  thereof.  ....  It  is,  then,  a  mistake  to  regard  the 
legal-tender  acts  as  either  fixing  a  standard  of  value,  or  regu 
lating  money  values,  or  making  that  money  which  has  no  in 
trinsic  value."4 

1  39  Barbour,  459,  461.  a  7  Wallace,  30. 

8  Mr.  Potter,  of  New  York.  *  12  Wallace,  553. 


522       NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE. 

Mr.  Justice  Bradley  says,  in  the  same  cases :  — 

"  This  power  is  entirely  distinct  from  that  of  coining  money  and  regu 
lating  the  value  thereof.  ....  It  is  incidental  to  the  power  of  borrow 
ing  money It  is  a  pledge  of  the  national  credit.  It  is  a  promise 

by  the  government  to  pay  dollars ;  it  is  not  an  attempt  to  make  dollars. 
The  standard  of  value  is  not  changed.  The  government  simply  demands 
that  its  credit  shall  be  accepted  and  received  by  public  and  private  credi 
tors  during  the  pending  exigency.  Every  government  has  a  right  to 

demand  this  when  its  existence  is  at  stake It  is  an  indirect  way 

of  compelling  the  owner  of  property  to  lend  to  the  government.  He  is 
forced  to  rely  on  the  national  credit."  —  Is  not  there  a  forced  loan  ?  — 

"  He  is  forced  to  rely  on  the  national  credit No  one  supposes 

that  these  government  certificates  are  never  to  be  paid ;  that  the  day  of 

specie  payments  is  never  to  return Through  whatever  changes 

they  pass,  their  ultimate  destiny  is  to  be  paid."  l 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  if  the  greenback  was  not  a  promise  to 
be  kept,  a  debt,  —  a  compulsory  debt,  —  a  forced  loan,  —  to  be 
paid,  then  these  declarations  of  the  Supreme  Court  have  no 
meaning.  I  leave  the  gentleman  to  wrestle  with  the  courts. 

The  gentleman  says  I  misrepresented  his  criticism  of  Mr. 
McCulloch,  late  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  The  passage  in  con 
troversy  is  this.  The  late  Secretary  said,  "  All  the  great  finan 
cial  troubles  which  have  occurred  in  the  United  States  have 
been  the  result  of  the  plethora  of  paper  money ;  and  the  crises 
have  always  been  reached  when  its  volume  was  the  largest." 
And  it  was  for  this  statement  that  the  gentleman  from  Pennsyl 
vania  denounced  him  as  "  conspicuously  ignorant  or  conspicu 
ously  mendacious."  I  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  Secretary 
was  entirely  right,  that  it  was  simply  a  naked  truth  that  all  the 
great  financial  crises  in  this  country  had  been  preceded  by  infla 
tion  of  paper  currency,  in  one  form  or  another.  The  gentleman 
now  gets  over  all  that  by  saying  Mr.  McCulloch  had  no  business 
to  use  the  term  "  paper  money,"  for  the  reason  that  there  had 
never  been  any  paper  money  in  this  country  until  the  "  legal 
tender  "  was  adopted ;  that  before  that  there  were  only  bank 
notes,  which  were  not  money.  And  so,  for  his  use  of  this  term, 
to  which  the  gentleman  attaches  a  peculiar  meaning  of  his  own, 
he  denounces  the  late  Secretary  as  ignorant  or  mendacious.  I 
concurred  with  the  Secretary,  not  only  in  the  truth  he  asserted, 
but  also  in  his  use  of  the  word.  The  whole  world  has  used  the 

1  12  Wallace,  560-562. 


NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE.       523 

term  "  paper  money  "  to  describe  the  various  paper  currencies 
that  America  has  had  from  the  beginning  until  now.  And  yet 
the  gentleman  says  that  but  for  this  misrepresentation  of  his 
speech  he  would  have  made  no  reply  to  my  speech  !  Behold 
on  what  a  slender  thread  hang  all  our  destinies ! 

He  assails  my  opinion  that  we  need,  not  only  a  national,  but 
an  international  currency.  I  went  on  to  state  that  we  have  a 
vast  volume  of  foreign  trade;  and,  by  the  way,  either  by  my 
mistake  or  the  printer's  the  aggregate  value  of  our  exports 
and  imports  was  stated  at  $1,500,000,000,  but  my  notes  said 
$1,200,000,000.  The  gentleman  convicts  me  of  conspicuous  in 
accuracy  in  that  regard,  and  he  is  right  in  the  correction.  I 
was  right  in  my  notes,  but  I  humbly  bow  to  his  correction  of  my 
print.  But  the  gentleman  denies  that  there  is  any  such  thing 
as  international  currency.  Did  he  suppose  I  was  talking  about 
a  common  coined  piece  of  money,  agreed  upon  among  the 
nations,  such  as  he  was  trying  to  secure  in  our  coinage  some 
years  ago?  Not  at  all.  It  was  plain,  I  think,  to  every  one  who 
heard  me,  that  I  was  speaking  of  coin,  which  the  whole  world 
recognizes  as  money,  and  in  which  all  our  foreign  trade  is  meas 
ured.  Now,  the  gentleman  did  not  need  to  tell  us  that  only 
balances  were  paid  in  actual  money.  Any  one  who  has  looked 
into  the  horn-books  of  finance  knows  that.  But  while  only  bal 
ances  are  paid  in  coin,  the  value  of  every  pound  of  merchandise 
imported  or  exported  is  measured  in  coin  ;  and  that  is  the 
ground  on  which  I  based  my  demand  for  a  coinage  for  Amer 
ica,  a  money  for  America,  which  can  be  used  for  international 
as  well  as  for  national  exchanges. 

The  next  point  the  gentleman  makes  is  that  my  reference  to 
resumption  in  England  was  exceedingly  unfortunate,  and  my 
citations  of  authorities  inaccurate.  He  has  learned  from  a 
three-line  notice  in  Allibone  that  Doubleday  was  a  great  finan 
cial  writer;  and  he  would  have  us  believe  that,  because  Alison 
wrote  a  history,  his  views  of  finance  must  be  sound.  But  I 
notice  that  neither  the  gentleman  nor  his  "  coach,"  Mr.  Schuck- 
ers,  who  addressed  to  the  gentleman  not  less  than  twenty  pam 
phlet  pages  on  the  subject  of  my  November  speech,  has  been 
able  to  argue  away  the  stubborn  fact,  that  in  1821,  and  again  in 
1822,  the  House  of  Commons,  by  a  vote  first  of  five  to  one,  and 
then  of  six  to  one,  declared  that  the  Resumption  Act  of  1819 
did  not  cause  the  distress  which  then  prevailed.  When  they 


524       NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE. 

have  proved  that  they  know  more  on  the  subject  than  the 
House  of  Commons,  it  will  be  in  order  to  appeal  to  Alison  and 
Doubleday,  and  to  assail  me  for  supposing  that  the  Parliament 
of  Great  Britain  is  a  fair  index  of  British  opinion. 

I  referred  to  a  chapter  of  Miss  Martineau's  History  of  Eng 
land,  in  which  the  causes  of  the  distress  are  set  forth  as  being 
those  that  I  alleged,  and  stated  that  Thomas  Tooke,  in  his  His 
tory  of  Prices,  held  the  same  opinion.  The  gentleman  from 
Pennsylvania  denies  that  Tooke  holds  the  opinions  that  I  attrib 
uted  to  him ;  and  Mr.  Schuckers  disposes  of  Miss  Martineau  by 
saying  she  was  "  of  all  human  animals  the  most  forlorn,  —  a 
woman  atheist,  —  whose  narration  is  a  mere  reiteration  of  Mr. 
Tooke's,  whose  follower  she  was."  In  answer  to  the  gentle 
man's  denial  I  quote  from  Tooke's  great  work :  — 

"  Never  indeed  was  there  a  measure  dictated  by  a  sounder  policy 
than  that  by  which  Parliament  determined,  in  1819,  that  the  trifling  di 
vergence  which  then  existed  between  the  paper  and  the  gold  should,  as 
speedily  as  was  conveniently  practicable,  be  remedied,  and  the  converti 
bility  restored  with  the  strongest  sanction  against  its  being  again  suspend 
ed.  So  loudly  was  that  measure  called  for  by  every  consideration  of 
justice  and  good  faith,  and  of  the  most  comprehensive  view  of  the  public 
interest,  that  if,  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  it  into  effect,  some  actual  de 
rangement  of  prices  and  of  credit  had  been  distinctly  contemplated,  the 
effort  would  have  been  amply  justified  by  the  object.  But  there  is  not 
the  vestige  of  a  ground  for  supposing  that  the  smallest  part  of  the  fall  of 
prices,  or  of  the  derangement  of  credit,  in  1819,  or  from  1819  to  1822, 
can,  according  to  any  evidence  of  facts  or  any  consistent  reasoning,  be 
traced  to  the  operation,  direct  or  indirect,  of  that  measure.  The  suffi 
ciency  of  the  causes,  without  reference  to  Peel's  bill,  of  the  fall  of  prices 
between  1818  and  1822,  can  hardly,  it  is  presumed,  admit  of  a  doubt  in 
the  mind  of  any  person  who,  unbiased  by  a  preconceived  theory,  will 
examine  carefully  the  facts  as  they  will  appear  in  evidence  in  connection 
with  the  fall  of  prices."  1 

For  Tooke's  analysis  of  the  corn  laws,  and  their  effects  on 
prices  and  panics,  I  refer  to  the  first  sixty-seven  pages  of  the 
third  volume  of  his  work. 

The  main  facts  to  which  I  referred,  in  regard  to  resumption 
in  England,  remain  unchallenged.  My  statement,  that  no  writer 
of  eminence  could  be  found  who  takes  the  opposite  view,  was 
doubtless  too  broad.  I  have  never  said  that  resumption  was 

1  Vol.  II.  p.  76  (London,  1838). 


NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE.       525 

accomplished,  or  ever  can  be  accomplished,  without  some  hard 
ship.  The  process  is  always  more  or  less  severe.  Perhaps  I 
understand  the  strength  of  British  opinion  to  the  effect  that  the 
Resumption  Act  produced  some  distress.  But  what  I  did  say 
remains  unanswered,  and  I  will  venture  to  say  unanswerable; 
viz.  the  opinion  of  Parliament,  the  recognized  official  opin 
ion  of  England,  expressed  in  the  most  decided  and  emphatic 
terms,  was,  that  the  resumption  of  cash  payments  was  a  great 
blessing,  a  wise  and  necessary  act  of  restoration  after  war.  This 
opinion  is  now  held,  and  has  been  held  for  more  than  half  a 
century,  by  a  great  majority  of  Englishmen. 

The  gentleman  criticises  me  on  another  point.  He  says  there 
is  not  $65,000,000  of  coin  reserve  in  the  treasury  available  for 
resumption,  and  that  there  is  not  $5,000,000  a  month  corrjing 
into  the  treasury  to  add  to  that  reserve.  Does  he  forget  that 
what  I  said  was  spoken  one  hundred  and  nine  days  ago?  What 
I  said  was  true  on  the  day  I  uttered  it,  according  to  the  author 
ity  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  But  I  also  said  that  here 
in  Congress  was  the  storm-centre  of  danger.  Will  the  gentle 
man  deny  that  the  agitation  we  have  had  here  since  November 
has  increased  the  public  distress,  and  retarded  our  progress 
toward  resumption? 

I  do  not  revive  the  discussion  of  the  silver  bill.  I  hope  that 
question  is  now  settled,  that  the  agitation  is  calmed,  and  that 
we  may  go  forward  into  whatever  of  prosperity  is  possible  for 
us ;  and  I  shall  be  glad  if  that  measure  turns  out  to  be  wise. 
But  it  is  a  poor  answer  to  my  facts,  stated  more  than  one  hun 
dred  days  ago,  to  say  that  $5,000,000  of  coin  is  not  now  being 
added  to  the  resumption  fund  each  month,  as  it  was  then. 

The  gentleman  says  that  the  great  trouble  with  all  our  affairs 
is,  and  has  been,  the  fatal  contraction  of  our  currency,  begun  by 
Hugh  McCulloch  in  1865,  and  continued  in  1866.  Mr.  Chair 
man,  here  is  a  little  history  which  I  wish  to  read.  The  years  he 
named  were  1865  and  1866.  On  the  i8th  of  December,  1865, 
the  following  resolution  was  introduced  into  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives :  "  Resolved,  That  this  House  cordially  concurs  in 
the  views  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  [Hugh  McCulloch] 
in  relation  to  the  necessity  of  a  contraction  of  the  currency,  with 
a  view  to  as  early  a  resumption  of  specie  payments  as  the  busi 
ness  interests  of  the  country  will  permit;  and  we  hereby  pledge 
co-operative  action  to  this  end  as  speedily  as  practicable." 


526      NEW  SCHEME   OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE. 

Here  are  the  yeas  and  nays  recorded  in  the  Journal  of  the 
House, —  144  yeas  and  6  nays;  and  among  the  yeas  I  read  the 
name  of  William  D.  Kelley. 

MR.  BROWNE.     Do  you  find  the  name  of  Voorhees  on  the  list? 

I  did  not  look;  but  a  gentleman  near  me  has  the  Journal,  and 
says  it  is  among  the  yeas. 

This  reminds  me  of  a  little  scene  that  occurred  here  not  many 
months  ago,  in  the  beginning  of  the  silver  agitation,  when  we 
heard  the  voice  of  the  titular  father  of  the  House  denouncing  the 
demonetization  of  silver  in  1873  as  a  legislative  "trick."  And 
yet,  when  that  bill  was  before  the  House  for  action,  that  same 
gentleman,  then  chairman  of  the  committee  that  framed  the  bill, 
assured  the  House  that  the  committee  had  considered  its  pro 
visions  carefully,  and  were  satisfied  that  it  ought  to  pass ;  that 
it  was  useless  to  attempt  to  continue  the  coinage  of  the  silver 
dollar;  that  they  had  dropped  it  because  gold  fluctuated  so 
continually  that  the  double  standard  could  not  be  maintained. 
Doubtless  every  man  is  entitled  to  change  his  opinions,  and  it 
is  often  wise  to  change  them.  But  these  examples  ought  to 
teach  the  gentleman,  when  he  assails  his  brethren  for  their 
opinions,  to  look  well  to  the  house  in  which  he  lives,  and  see 
how  many  glass  windows  it  contains. 

Mr.  Chairman,  the  gentleman's  speech  from  beginning  to 
end  was  a  mere  criticism  of  the  little  details  of  my  speech.  If 
everything  he  said  were  granted,  it  does  not  touch  whatever  of 
strength  there  was  in  my  argument.  In  the  main,  he  busied 
himself  with  a  fact  here  and  there,  a  quotation,  a  citation,  or 
a  reference,  but  did  not  touch  the  marrow  of  what  I  tried  to 
present.  My  central  proposition  was  that  the  greenback  cur 
rency  was  a  debt  to  be  paid ;  that,  by  all  the  solemn  sanc 
tions  of  law,  of  honor,  of  duty,  we  are  bound  to  make  these 
notes  equal  to  coin,  —  to  redeem  them ;  and  it  is  precisely  that 
which  displeased  the  gentleman.  It  does  not  answer  my  propo 
sition  to  ramble  over  my  speech  and  pick  up  a  morsel  here  and 
there ;  to  leave  the  line  of  debate  and  become  what  the  Gre 
cians  called  a  cnrep/jLoXoyos, —  a  picker  up  of  bird-seed,  a  snap 
per  up  of  unconsidered  trifles. 

In  my  opinion,  Mr.  Chairman,  the  essence  of  this  whole  mat 
ter  will  be  found  in  this.  The  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  is 
not  content  with  the  legislation  that  we  have  had.  He  de- 


NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE.       527 

nounced  silver  when  it  was  first  proposed  as  a  subsidiary  coin 
age  in  place  of  paper  scrip,  and  sought  to  laugh  it  out  of  the 
House.  But  it  so  happens  that  the  wind  now  sits  in  another 
quarter.  He  and  some  other  financiers  of  the  new  school  ac 
cept  silver  only  as  a  step  to  the  next  stage  of  controversy. 
It  is  not  the  silver  dollar,  but  the  irredeemable  paper  dollar, 
to  which  they  cry,  "  All  hail !  that  shalt  be  King  hereafter." 
The  programme  of  these  advocates  of  "fiat  money"  is  begin 
ning  to  appear.  We  had  it  in  the  powerful  speech  made  by 
the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,1  a  few  days  since,  in  which 
he  said  he  wanted  that  dollar  stamped  upon  some  convenient 
and  cheap  material  of  the  least  possible  intrinsic  value,  so  that 
neither  its  wear  nor  its  destruction  would  be  any  loss  to  the 
government  issuing  it.  He  said  he  also  desired  the  dollar  to 
be  made  of  such  material  that  it  would  never  be  desirable  to 
carry  it  out  of  the  country.  He  did  not  propose  to  adapt  an 
American  system  of  finance  to  the  wants  of  any  other  nation, 
and  especially  the  Chinese,  who  are  nearly  one  quarter  of  the 
world.  He  desires  also  that  the  dollar  so  issued  shall  never  be 
redeemed. 

This  is  the  new  battle  line  on  which  these  champions  of  the 
new  system  of  American  finance  challenge  all  men  of  both  par 
ties,  who  believe  in  gold  and  silver  coin,  and  paper  exchange 
able  for  coin,  to  join  issue.  They  wish  to  strike  from  our  law 
the  nation's  promise  and  pledge  to  redeem  its  notes.  They  wish 
to  supersede  the  "  barbarism  of  gold  and  silver"  by  a  coinage 
of  paper;  and  in  the  kingdom  to  be,  when  paper  —  worthless 
paper  —  has  become  our  currency,  then  will  the  time  have 
arrived,  welcomed  by  the  apostles  of  the  new  finance,  when  our 
bonds  will  not  only  come  back  to  us  from  abroad,  but  will 
depreciate  to  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar.  This  is  the  very  essence 
of  communism. 

If  I  read  aright  the  signs  in  the  political  horizon,  the  time 
is  just  at  hand  when  men  who  love  their  country,  its  honor  and 
its  plighted  faith,  —  men  of  both  political  parties, — will  stand 
together  against  this  new  heresy  known  as  "  American  finance." 
On  the  issue  which  the  gentleman  and  his  associates  raise,  my 
choice  has  long  since  been  made.  It  is  an  issue  of  such  tran 
scendent  importance  that  it  may  render  all  others  obsolete. 
It  is  the  struggle  of  honor  against  dishonor,  of  law  against 

1  Mr.  Butler. 


528       NEW  SCHEME    OF  AMERICAN  FINANCE. 

anarchy,  —  a  struggle  in  which  the  peace  and  safety  of  both 
employer  and  employed,  government  and  people,  are  involved. 
In  such  a  contest  I  care  not  into  what  party  the  issue  lands  me, 
or  in  what  company  it  finds  me ;  when  it  conies,  I  shall  stand 
with  the  men  who  defend  the  money  of  the  Constitution  and 
the  faith  of  the  country.  And  we  cannot  be  a  moment  too 
soon  in  understanding  the  nature  and  designs  of  those  who 
are  preparing  the  conflict. 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  beg  the  pardon  of  the  committee  for  delay 
ing  the  appropriation  bill  by  this  speech,  and  I  specially  regret 
the  necessity  which  compelled  me  to  make  it. 


OLIVER   P.    MORTON. 

REMARKS   MADE   IN   THE  HOUSE  OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 
JANUARY  18,  1878. 


THE  Senate  sent  the  following  resolutions  to  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  :  — 

"  IN  THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  January  17,  1878. 

"  Resolved,  That  from  an  earnest  desire  to  show  every  mark  of  respect 
to  the  memory  of  Hon.  Oliver  P.  Morton,  late  a  Senator  of  the  United 
States  from  the  State  of  Indiana,  and  to  manifest  the  high  estimate  en 
tertained  of  his  eminent  public  services,  his  distinguished  patriotism,  and 
his  usefulness  as  a  citizen,  the  business  of  the  Senate  be  now  suspended, 
that  the  friends  and  associates  of  the  deceased  Senator  may  pay  fitting 
tribute  to  his  public  and  private  virtues. 

"  Resolved,  That  a  wide-spread  and  public  sorrow  on  the  announce 
ment  of  his  death  attested  the  profound  sense  of  the  loss  which  the 
whole  country  has  sustained. 

"  Resolved,  That,  as  a  mark  of  respect  for  the  memory  of  Mr.  Morton, 
the  members  of  the  Senate  will  go  into  mourning  by  wearing  crape  upon 
the  left  arm  for  thirty  days. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Senate  communicate  these  reso 
lutions  to  the  House  of  Representatives." 

Pending  these  resolutions  in  the  House,  Mr.  Garfield  made  the  follow 
ing  remarks. 


MR.  SPEAKER, —  Special  training-schools  have  been  estab 
lished  or  encouraged  by  law  for  all  the  great  professions 
known  among  Americans,  except  statesmanship.     And  yet  no 
profession  requires  for  its  successful  pursuit  a  wider   range  of 
general   and  special   knowledge,   or  a  more  thorough  and  va 
ried  culture.     Probably  no  American  youth,  unless  we  except 
VOL.  n.  34 


530  OLIVER  P.   MORTON. 

John  Quincy  Adams,  was  ever  trained  with  special  reference  to 
the  political  service  of  his  country. 

In  monarchical  governments,  not  only  wealth  and  rank,  but 
political  authority,  descend  by  inheritance  from  father  to  son. 
The  eldest  son  of  an  English  peer  knows  from  his  earliest  child 
hood  that  a  seat  awaits  him  in  the  House  of  Lords.  If  he  be 
capable  and  ambitious,  the  dreams  of  his  boyhood  and  the  stud 
ies  of  his  youth  are  directed  toward  the  great  field  of  statesman 
ship.  To  the  favored  few,  this  system  affords  many  and  great 
advantages,  and  upon  the  untitled  many,  whom  "  birth's  invidi 
ous  bar  "  shuts  out  from  the  highest  places  of  power,  it  must  rest 
with  discouraging  weight. 

Our  institutions  confer  special  privileges  upon  no  citizen,  and 
we  may  now  say  they  erect  no  barrier  in  the  honorable  career 
of  the  humblest  American.  They  open  an  equal  pathway  for 
all,  and  invite  the  worthiest  to  the  highest  seats.  The  fountains 
of  our  strength  as  a  nation  spring  from  the  private  life  and  the 
voluntary  efforts  of  forty-five  millions  of  people.  Each  for  him 
self  confronts  the  problem  of  life,  and  amid  its  varied  conditions 
develops  the  forces  with  which  God  has  endowed  him.  Mean 
time,  the  nation  moves  on  in  its  great  orbit,  with  a  life  and  des 
tiny  of  its  own,  each  year  calling  to  its  aid  those  qualities  and 
forces  which  are  needed  for  its  preservation  and  its  glory.  Now 
it  needs  the  prudence  of  the  counsellor,  now  the  wisdom  of  the 
lawgiver,  and  now  the  shield  of  the  warrior  to  cover  its  heart 
in  the  day  of  battle.  And  when  the  hour  and  the  man  have  met, 
and  the  needed  work  has  been  done,  the  nation  crowns  her  heroes 
and  makes  them  her  own  forever.  Such  hours  we  have  often 
seen  during  the  last  seventeen  years,  hours  which  have  called 
forth  the  great  elements  of  manhood  and  strength  from  the  ranks 
of  our  people,  and  filled  our  pantheon  with  national  heroes. 

Seventeen  years  ago,  at  a  moment  of  supreme  peril,  the 
nation  called  upon  the  people  of  twenty-two  States  to  meet 
around  her  altar  and  defend  her  life.  Of  all  the  noble  men 
who  responded  to  that  call,  no  voice  rang  out  with  more  clear 
ness  and  power  than  that  of  Oliver  P.  Morton,  the  young  Gov 
ernor  of  Indiana.  He  was  then  but  thirty-seven  years  of  age. 
Self-made,  as  all  men  are  who  are  worth  the  making,  he  had 
risen  from  a  hard  life  of  narrow  conditions  by  fighting  his  own 
way,  thinking  his  own  thoughts  and  uttering  them  without  fear, 
until,  by  the  fortune  of  political  life,  he  had  become  the  chief 


OLIVER  P.   MORTON.  531 

executive  of  his  State.  He  saw  at  once  and  declared  the  terri 
ble  significance  of  the  impending  struggle,  and  threw  his  whole 
weight  into  the  conflict.  His  State  and  my  own  marched  abreast 
in  generous  emulation.  But  he  was  surrounded  by  difficulties 
and  dangers  which  hardly  found  a  parallel  in  any  other  State. 
With  unconquerable  will  and  the  energy  of  a  Titan  he  encoun 
tered  and  overcame  them  all ;  and,  keeping  Indiana  in  line  with 
the  foremost,  he  justly  earned  the  title  of  one  of  the  greatest 
war  Governors  of  that  heroic  period.  Thus  the  great  need  of 
the  nation  called  forth  and  fixed  in  the  enduring  colors  of  fame 
those  high  qualities  which  thirty-seven  years  of  private  life  had 
been  preparing. 

To  learn  the  lesson  of  his  great  life,  let  us  recall  briefly  its 
leading  characteristics. 

He  was  a  great  organizer ;  he  knew  how  to  evoke  and  direct 
the  enthusiasm  of  his  people.  He  knew  how  to  combine  and 
marshal  his  forces,  political  or  military,  so  as  to  concentrate 
them  all  upon  a  single  object,  and  inspire  them  with  his  own 
ardor.  I  have  often  compared  him  with  Stanton,  our  great  War 
Secretary,  whose  windows  at  the  War  Office,  for  many  years, 
far  into  the  night  shone  out  "  like  battle  lanterns  lit,"  while  he 
mustered  great  armies  and  launched  them  into  the  tempest  of 
war,  and  "  organized  victory."  In  the  whole  circle  of  the  States, 
no  organizer  stood  nearer  to  him  in  character,  qualities,  and 
friendship  than  Oliver  P.  Morton. 

His  force  of  will  was  most  masterful.  It  was  not  mere  stub 
bornness  or  pride  of  opinion,  which  weak  and  narrow  men  mis 
take  for  firmness;  but  it  was  that  stout-hearted  persistency 
which,  having  once  intelligently  chosen  an  object,  pursues  it 
through  sunshine  and  storm,  undaunted  by  difficulties  and  un- 
terrified  by  danger. 

He  possessed  an  intellect  of  remarkable  clearness  and  force. 
With  keen  analysis,  he  found  the  core  of  a  question,  and  worked 
from  the  centre  outwards.  He  cared  little  for  the  mere  graces 
of  speech ;  but  few  men  have  been  so  greatly  endowed  with  the 
power  of  clear  statement  and  unassailable  argument.  The  path 
of  his  thought  was  straight,  — 

"  Like  that  of  the  swift  cannon-ball, 
Shattering  that  it  may  reach,  and  shattering  what  it  reaches." 

When  he  had  hit  the  mark,  he  used  no  additional  words  and 
sought  for  no  decoration.  These  qualities,  joined  to  his  power 


532  OLIVER  P.   MORTON. 

of  thinking  quickly,  placed  him  in  the  front  rank  of  debaters, 
and  every  year  increased  his  thought. 

It  has  been  said  that  Senator  Morton  was  a  partisan,  a  strong 
partisan,  —  and  this  is  true.  In  the  estimation  of  some  this  de 
tracts  from  his  fame.  That  evils  arise  from  extreme  partisan 
ship,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  But  it  should  not  be  forgotten 
that  all  free  governments  are  party  governments.  Our  great 
Americans  have  been  great  partisans.  Senator  Morton  was  not 
more  partisan  than  Adams,  Jefferson,  Jackson,  Clay,  Calhoun, 
Benton,  Marshall,  Taney,  or  Chase.  Strong  men  must  have 
strong  convictions,  and  "  one  man  with  a  belief  is  a  greater 
power  than  a  thousand  that  have  only  interests."  Partisanship 
is  opinion  crystallized,  and  party  organizations  are  the  scaffold 
ings  whereon  citizens  stand  while  they  build  up  the  wall  of  their 
national  temple.  Organizations  may  change  or  dissolve ;  but 
when  parties  cease  to  exist,  liberty  will  perish. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  say  that  the  memory  of  Governor  Mor 
ton  will  be  forever  cherished  and  honored  by  the  soldiers  of 
Ohio.  They  fought  side  by  side  with  the  soldiers  of  Indiana, 
and  on  a  hundred  glorious  fields  his  name  was  the  battle-cry  of 
the  noble  regiments  which  he  had  organized  and  inspired  with 
his  own  lofty  spirit. 

To  the  nation  he  has  left  the  legacy  of  his  patriotism,  and  the 
example  of  a  great  and  eventful  life. 


LINCOLN   AND    EMANCIPATION. 

ADDRESS  DELIVERED   IN   THE   HALL   OF  THE    HOUSE  OF 
REPRESENTATIVES, 

FEBRUARY  12,  1878. 


JANUARY  16,  1878,  the  following  communication  was  presented  to  the 
House  of  Representatives  :  — 

"  To  THE  SENATE  AND  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES  IN  CONGRESS  ASSEMBLED. 

"  Your  petitioner  most  respectfully  represents  as  follows  :  — 

"The  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  by  President  Lincoln  was  one 
of  the  great  historic  events  of  the  century,  —  scarcely  second  in  impor 
tance  to  any  in  our  national  annals.  The  historical  painting  celebrating 
this  act,  executed  under  the  direct  supervision  of  President  Lincoln  at  the 
Executive  mansion  in  1 864,  has  become  widely  known  through  engraved 
copies  which  may  be  seen  hanging  upon  the  walls  of  thousands  of  homes 
throughout  the  land.  The  public  press  has  from  time  to  time  given 
expression  to  the  popular  desire  that  this  painting,  associated  as  it  is  with 
the  memory  of  the  lamented  Lincoln,  should  be  preserved  among  the 
other  historic  art-works  of  the  national  Capitol. 

"  But  the  enforced  economy  in  public  expenditures,  approved  by  all 
good  citizens,  has  of  late  years  restricted,  and  probably  for  many  years  to 
come  will  restrict,  the  purchase  of  works  of  art  by  Congress.  Meanwhile, 
there  is  danger  that  this  painting  may  be  lost  to  the  country  by  accident, 
as  was  the  original  written  proclamation  by  the  burning  of  Chicago. 

"  Your  petitioner  has,  therefore,  purchased  this  painting  of  the  artist, 
whose  earnest  study  and  labor  upon  it  have  been  protracted  through 
many  years,  and  now  respectfully  requests  that  you  receive  the  same  as  a 
gift  to  the  nation.  Your  petitioner  has  also  been  moved  by  the  fact  that 
President  Lincoln,  a  few  weeks  before  his  death,  expressed  the  wish  that 
this  historic  painting  should  become  the  property  of  the  nation,  and  be 
preserved  in  the  national  Capitol. 

"  Your  petitioner  ventures  the  hope  that,  should  her  gift  meet  the  ap 
proval  of  Congress,  an  hour  may  be  designated,  on  Lincoln's  birthday, 
February  12,  to  receive  the  painting. 

"  ELIZABETH  THOMPSON. 

"NEW  YORK,  January  9,  1878." 


534  LINCOLN  AND  EMANCIPATION. 

Mr.  Garfield  moved  that  this  memorial  be  spread  upon  the  Journal  of 
the  House  ;  to  which  there  was  no  objection.  He  then  introduced  this 
joint  resolution,  which  was  agreed  to  :  — 

"  Whereas,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Thompson,  of  New  York  City,  has  tendered 
to  Congress  Carpenter's  painting  of  President  Lincoln  and  his  Cabi 
net,  at  the  time  of  his  first  reading  of  the  Proclamation  of  Eman 
cipation  :  Therefore, 

"  Resolved  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
States  of  America  in  Congress  assembled,  That  the  said  painting  is  hereby 
accepted  in  the  name  of  the  people  of  the  United  States ;  and  the  thanks 
of  Congress  are  tendered  to  the  donor  for  the  generous  and  patriotic  gift. 

"  And  be  it  further  resolved,  That  the  Joint  Committee  on  the  Library 
are  hereby  instructed  to  make  arrangements  for  the  formal  presentation 
of  said  painting  to  Congress,  on  Tuesday,  the  i2th  of  February  next; 
and  said  committee  shall  cause  said  painting  to  be  placed  in  an  appropri 
ate  and  conspicuous  place  in  the  Capitol,  and  shall  carefully  provide  for 
its  preservation. 

"  And  be  it  further  resolved,  That  the  President  is  requested  to  cause 
a  copy  of  these  Resolutions  to  be  forwarded  to  Mrs.  Thompson." 

The  Senate  also  adopted  the  resolution,  and  in  pursuance  of  its  pro 
visions  the  hour  of  two  o'clock  p.  M.,  Tuesday,  February  12,  was  fixed 
for  the  formal  presentation  and  acceptance  of  the  painting. 

At  two  o'clock,  the  Assistant  Doorkeeper  of  the  House  announced  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States.  Preceded  by  the  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States  and  accompanied  by  their  Secretary  and  Sergeant-at-Arms, 
the  Senators  entered  and  took  the  seats  assigned  them.  The  donor  of 
the  picture,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Thompson,  with  her  escort,  and  the  artist, 
Mr.  F.  B.  Carpenter,  also  occupied  seats  on  the  floor.  The  painting, 
which  had  been  covered  with  the  American  flag,  hung  unveiled  behind 
the  Speaker's  desk. 

The  Vice-President  (who  occupied  a  chair  on  the  right  of  the  Speaker), 
said  :  "  The  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  have  convened  in  joint 
session  for  the  purpose  of  receiving,  through  the  munificence  of  Mrs. 
Elizabeth  Thompson,  of  the  city  of  New  York,  Carpenter's  painting,  '  The 
Signing  of  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation.'  " 

Mr.  Garfield  then  delivered  the  following  speech,  presenting  the  picture 
to  Congress. 


MR.  PRESIDENT,  —  By  the  order  of  the  Senate  and  the 
House,  and   on   behalf  of  the    donor,   Mrs.   Elizabeth 
Thompson,  it  is  made  my  pleasant  duty  to  deliver  to  Congress 
the  painting  which  is  now  unveiled.     It  is  the  patriotic  gift  of 


LINCOLN  AND  EMANCIPATION.  535 

an  American  woman  whose  years  have  been  devoted  to  gentle 
and  generous  charities  and  to  the  instruction  and  elevation  of 
the  laboring  poor.  Believing  that  the  perpetuity  and  glory  of 
her  country  depend  upon  the  dignity  of  labor  and  the  equal 
freedom  of  all  its  people,  she  has  come  to  the  Capitol  to  place 
in  the  perpetual  custody  of  the  nation,  as  the  symbol  of  her 
faith,  the  representation  of  that  great  act  which  proclaimed 
"  liberty  throughout  all  the  land  onto  all  the  inhabitants  thereof." 
Inspired  by  the  same  sentiment,  the  representatives  of  the  na 
tion  have  opened  the  doors  of  this  chamber  to  receive  at  her 
hands  the  sacred  trust. 

In  coming  hither,  these  living  representatives  have  passed 
under  the  dome  and  through  that  beautiful  and  venerable  hall 
which,  on  another  occasion,  I  have  ventured  to  call  the  third 
House  of  the  American  Congress,  that  silent  assembly  whose 
members  have  received  their  high  credentials  at  the  impartial 
hand  of  history.  Year  by  year,  we  see  the  circle  of  its  immor 
tal  membership  enlarging ;  year  by  year,  we  see  the  elect  of 
their  country,  in  eloquent  silence,  taking  their  places  in  this 
American  Pantheon,  bringing  within  its  sacred  precincts  the 
wealth  of  those  immortal  memories  which  made  their  lives  illus 
trious;  and  year  by  year,  that  august  assembly  is  teaching 
deeper  and  grander  lessons  to  those  who  serve  in  these  more 
ephemeral  houses  of  Congress. 

Among  the  paintings  hitherto  assigned  to  places  within  the 
Capitol  are  two  which  mark  events  forever  memorable  in  the 
history  of  mankind,  — thrice  memorable  in  the  history  of  America. 
The  first  is  the  painting  by  Vanderlyn,  which  represents,  though 
with  inadequate  force,  the  great  discovery  which  gave  to  the 
civilized  world  a  new  hemisphere.  The  second,  by  Trumbull, 
represents  that  great  Declaration  which  banished  forever  from 
our  shores  the  crown  and  sceptre  of  imperial  power,  and  pro 
posed  to  found  a  new  nation  upon  the  broad  and  enduring  basis 
of  liberty. 

To-day,  we  place  upon  our  walls  this  votive  tablet,  which 
commemorates  the  third  great  act  in  the  history  of  America,  — 
the  fulfilment  of  the  promises  of  the  Declaration. 

Concerning  the  causes  which  led  to  that  act,  the  motives 
which  inspired  it,  the  necessities  which  compelled  it,  and  the 
consequences  which  followed  and  are  yet  to  follow  it,  there  have 
been,  there  are,  and  still  will  be  great  and  honest  differences  of 


536  LINCOLN  AND  EMANCIPATION. 

opinion.  Perhaps  we  are  yet  too  near  the  great  events  of  which 
this  act  formed  so  conspicuous  a  part,  to  understand  its  deep 
significance  and  to  foresee  its  far-off  consequences.  The  lesson 
of  history  is  rarely  learned  by  the  actors  themselves,  especially 
when  they  read  it  by  the  fierce  and  dusky  light  of  war,  or  amid 
the  deeper  shadows  of  those  sorrows  which  war  brings  to  both. 
But  the  unanimous  voice  of  this  House  in  favor  of  accepting  the 
gift,  and  the  impressive  scene  we  here  witness,  bear  eloquent 
testimony  to  the  transcendent  importance  of  the  event  portrayed 
on  yonder  canvas. 

Let  us  pause  to  consider  the  actors  in  that  scene.  In  force  of 
character,  in  thoroughness  and  breadth  of  culture,  in  experience 
of  public  affairs,  and  in  national  reputation,  the  Cabinet  that  sat 
around  that  council-board  has  had  no  superior,  perhaps  no 
equal  in  our  history.  Seward,  the  finished  scholar,  the  consum 
mate  orator,  the  great  leader  of  the  Senate,  had  come  to  crown 
his  career  with  those  achievements  which  placed  him  in  the  first 
rank  of  modern  diplomatists.  Chase,  with  a  culture  and  a  fame 
of  massive  grandeur,  stood  as  the  rock  and  pillar  of  the  public 
credit,  the  noble  embodiment  of  the  public  faith.  Stanton  was 
there,  a  very  Titan  of  strength,  the  great  organizer  of  victory. 
Eminent  lawyers,  men  of  business,  leaders  of  states  and  leaders 
of  men,  completed  the  group. 

But  the  man  who  presided  over  that  council,  who  inspired 
and  guided  its  deliberations,  was  a  character  so  unique  that  he 
stood  alone,  without  a  model  in  history  or  a  parallel  among 
men.  Born  on  this  day,  sixty-nine  years  ago,  to  an  inheritance 
of  extremest  poverty;  surrounded  by  the  rude  forces  of  the 
wilderness ;  wholly  unaided  by  parents ;  only  one  year  in  any 
school ;  never,  for  a  day,  master  of  his  own  time  until  he  reached 
his  majority;  making  his  way  to  the  profession  of  the  law  by 
the  hardest  and  roughest  road  ;  —  yet  by  force  of  unconquerable 
will  and  persistent,  patient  work,  he  attained  a  foremost  place  in 
his  profession, 

"  And,  moving  up  from  high  to  higher, 
Became  on  Fortune's  crowning  slope 
The  pillar  of  a  people's  hope, 
The  centre  of  a  world's  desire." 

At  first,  it  was  the  prevailing  belief  that  he  would  be  only  the 
nominal  head  of  his  administration,  —  that  its  policy  would  be 
directed  by  the  eminent  statesmen  he  had  called  to  his  council. 


LINCOLN  AND  EMANCIPATION.  537 

How  erroneous  this  opinion  was  may  be  seen  from  a  single 
incident. 

Among  the  earliest,  most  difficult,  and  most  delicate  duties 
of  his  administration  was  the  adjustment  of  our  relations  with 
Great  Britain.  Serious  complications,  even  hostilities,  were  ap 
prehended.  On  the  2  ist  of  May,  1861,  the  Secretary  of  State 
presented  to  the  President  his  draught  of  a  letter  of  instruc 
tions  to  Minister  Adams,  in  which  the  position  of  the  United 
States  and  the  attitude  of  Great  Britain  were  set  forth  with  the 
clearness  and  force  which  long  experience  and  great  ability 
had  placed  at  the  command  of  the  Secretary.  Upon  almost 
every  page  of  that  original  draught  are  erasures,  additions, 
and  marginal  notes  in  the  handwriting  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
which  exhibit  a  sagacity,  a  breadth  of  wisdom,  and  a  compre 
hension  of  the  whole  subject,  impossible  to  be  found  except 
in  a  man  of  the  very  first  order.  And  these  modifications  of 
a  great  state  paper  were  made  by  a  man  who  but  three  months 
before  had  entered  for  the  first  time  the  wide  theatre  of  Execu 
tive  action. 

Gifted  with  an  insight  and  a  foresight  which  the  ancients  would 
have  called  divination,  he  saw,  in  the  midst  of  darkness  and 
obscurity,  the  logic  of  events,  and  forecast  the  result.  From 
the  first,  in  his  own  quaint,  original  way,  without  ostentation  or 
offence  to  his  associates,  he  was  pilot  and  commander  of  his 
administration.  He  was  one  of  the  few  great  rulers  whose  wis 
dom  increased  with  his  power,  and  whose  spirit  grew  gentler 
and  tenderer  as  his  triumphs  were  multiplied. 

This  was  the  man,  and  these  his  associates,  who  look  down 
upon  us  from  the  canvas. 

The  present  is  not  a  fitting  occasion  to  examine,  with  any 
completeness,  the  causes  that  led  to  the  Proclamation  of  Eman 
cipation  ;  but  the  peculiar  relation  of  that  act  to  the  character 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  cannot  be  understood,  without  considering 
one  remarkable  fact  in  his  history.  His  earlier  years  were 
passed  in  a  region  remote  from  the  centres  of  political  thought, 
and  without  access  to  the  great  world  of  books.  But  the  few 
books  that  came  within  his  reach  he  devoured  with  the  divine 
hunger  of  genius.  One  paper,  above  all  others,  led  him  captive, 
and  filled  his  spirit  with  the  majesty  of  its  truth  and  the  sub 
limity  of  its  eloquence.  It  was  the  Declaration  of  American 
Independence.  The  author  and  the  signers  of  that  instrument 


538  LINCOLN  AND  EMANCIPATION. 

became,  in  his  early  youth,  the  heroes  of  his  political  worship. 
I  doubt  if  history  affords  any  example  of  a  life  so  early,  so 
deeply,  and  so  permanently  influenced  by  a  single  political 
truth,  as  was  Abraham  Lincoln's  by  the  central  doctrine  of  the 
Declaration,  —  the  liberty  and  equality  of  all  men.  Long  before 
his  fame  had  become  national  he  said,  "  That  is  the  electric 
cord  in  the  Declaration,  that  links  the  hearts  of  patriotic  and 
liberty-loving  men  together,  and  that  will  link  such  hearts  as 
long  as  the  love  of  freedom  exists  in  the  minds  of  men  through 
out  the  world." 

That  truth  runs,  like  a  thread  of  gold,  through  the  whole  web 
of  his  political  life.  It  was  the  spear-point  of  his  logic  in  his 
debates  with  Douglas.  It  was  the  inspiring  theme  of  his  remark 
able  speech  at  the  Cooper  Institute,  New  York,  in  1860,  which 
gave  him  the  nomination  to  the  Presidency.  It  filled  him  with 
reverent  awe  when  on  his  way  to  the  capital  to  enter  the  shadows 
of  the  terrible  conflict  then  impending,  he  uttered,  in  Indepen 
dence  Hall,  at  Philadelphia,  these  remarkable  words,  which  were 
prophecy  then,  but  are  history  now :  — 

"  I  have  never  had  a  feeling,  politically,  that  did  not  spring  from  the 
sentiments  embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  I  have  often 
pondered  over  the  dangers  which  were  incurred  by  the  men  who  assem 
bled  here,  and  framed  and  adopted  that  Declaration  of  Independence.  I 
have  pondered  over  the  toils  that  were  endured  by  the  officers  and  sol 
diers  of  the  army  who  achieved  that  independence.  I  have  often  inquired 
of  myself  what  great  principle  or  idea  it  was  that  kept  this  confederacy 
so  long  together.  It  was  not  the  mere  matter  of  the  separation  of  the 
Colonies  from  the  mother  land,  but  that  sentiment  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  which  gave  liberty,  not  alone  to  the  people  of  this  country, 
but,  I  hope,  to  the  world  for  all  future  time.  It  was  that  which  gave 
promise  that,  in  due  time,  the  weight  would  be  lifted  from  the  shoulders 
of  all  men.  This  is  the  sentiment  embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence.  Now,  my  friends,  can  this  country  be  saved  upon  that  basis  ? 
If  it  can,  I  will  consider  myself  one  of  the  happiest  men  in  the  world  if 
I  can  help  to  save  it.  If  it  cannot  be  saved  upon  that  principle,  it  will 
be  truly  awful.  But  if  this  country  cannot  be  saved  without  giving  up 
that  principle,  I  was  about  to  say,  /  would  rather  be  assassinated  on  this 
spot  than  surrender  it"  * 

Deep  and  strong  was  his  devotion  to  liberty ;  yet  deeper  and 
stronger  still  was  his  devotion  to  the  Union ;  for  he  believed 

1  Life,  Public  Services,  and  State  Papers  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Henry  J. 
Raymond,  pp.  154,  155  (New  York,  1865). 


LINCOLN  AND  EMANCIPATION.  539 

that  without  the  Union  permanent  liberty  for  either  race  on 
this  continent  would  be  impossible.  And  because  of  this  belief, 
he  was  reluctant,  perhaps  more  reluctant  than  most  of  his  asso 
ciates,  to  strike  slavery  with  the  sword.  For  many  months,  the 
passionate  appeals  of  millions  of  his  associates  seemed  not  to 
move  him.  He  listened  to  all  the  phases  of  the  discussion,  and 
stated,  in  language  clearer  and  stronger  than  any  opponent  had 
used,  the  dangers,  the  difficulties,  and  the  possible  futility  of  the 
act.  In  reference  to  its  practical  wisdom,  Congress,  the  Cabinet, 
and  the  country  were  divided.  Several  of  his  generals  had  pro 
claimed  the  freedom  of  slaves  within  the  limits  of  their  com 
mands.  The  President  revoked  their  proclamations.  His  first 
Secretary  of  War  had  inserted  a  paragraph  in  his  annual  report 
advocating  a  similar  policy.  The  President  suppressed  it. 

On  the  iQth  of  August,  1862,  Horace  Greeley  published  a 
letter,'  addressed  to  the  President,  entitled  "  The  Prayer  of 
Twenty  Millions,"  in  which  he  said,  "  On  the  face  of  this  wide 
earth,  Mr.  President,  there  is  not  one  disinterested,  determined, 
intelligent  champion  of  the  Union  cause  who  does  not  feel  that 
all  attempts  to  put  down  the  rebellion  and  at  the  same  time 
uphold  its  inciting  cause  are  preposterous  and  futile." 

To  this  the  President  responded  in  that  ever-memorable  reply 
of  August  22,  in  which  he  said:  — 

"  If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union  unless  they  could 
at  the  same  time  save  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them. 

"  If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union  unless  they  could  at 
the  same  time  destroy  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them. 

"  My  paramount  object  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  not  either  to  save  or 
to  destroy  slavery. 

"  If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any  slave,  I  would  do  it. 
If  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves,  I  would  do  it,  —  and  if  I  could 
do  it  by  freeing  some  and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do  that. 

"  What  I  do  about  slavery  and  the  colored  race,  I  do  because  I  believe 
it  helps  to  save  the  Union ;  and  what  I  forbear,  I  forbear  because  I  do 
not  believe  it  would  help  to  save  the  Union.'  I  shall  do  less  whenever  I 
shall  believe  that  what  I  am  doing  hurts  the  cause,  and  I  shall  do  more 
whenever  I  believe  doing  more  will  help  the  cause."  ] 

Thus,  against  all  importunities  on  the  one  hand  and  remon 
strances  on  the  other,  he  took  the  mighty  question  to  his 
own  heart,  and,  during  the  long  months  of  that  terrible  battle- 

1  Raymond's  Life,  etc.,  p.  253. 


540  LINCOLN  AND  EMANCIPATION. 

summer,  wrestled  with  it  alone.  But  at  length  he  realized  the 
saving  truth,  that  great,  unsettled  questions  have  no  pity  for  the 
repose  of  nations.  On  the  22d  of  September,  he  summoned 
his  Cabinet  to  announce  his  conclusion.  It  was  my  good  for 
tune,  on  that  same  day,  and  a  few  hours  after  the  meeting,  to 
hear,  from  the  lips  of  one  who  participated,  the  story  of  the 
scene.  As  the  chiefs  of  the  Executive  Departments  came  in, 
one  by  one,  they  found  the  President  reading  a  favorite  chapter 
from  a  popular  humorist.  He  was  lightening  the  weight  of  the 
great  burden  which  rested  upon  his  spirit.  He  finished  the 
chapter,  reading  it  aloud.  And  here  I  quote,  from  the  published 
Journal  of  the  late  Chief  Justice,  an  entry,  written  immediately 
after  the  meeting,  and  bearing  unmistakable  evidence  that  it  is 
almost  a  literal  transcript  of  Lincoln's  words. 

"  The  President  then  took  a  graver  tone,  and  said :  '  Gentlemen,  I 
have,  as  you  are  aware,  thought  a  great  deal  about  the  relation  of  this 
war  to  slavery ;  and  you  all  remember  that,  several  weeks  ago,  I  read  to 
you  an  order  I  had  prepared  upon  the  subject,  which,  on  account  of 
objections  made  by  some  of  you,  was  not  issued.  Ever  since  then  my 
mind  has  been  much  occupied  with  this  subject,  and  I  have  thought  all 
along  that  the  time  for  acting  on  it  might  probably  come.  I  think  the 
time  has  come  now.  I  wish  it  was  a  better  time.  I  wish  that  we  were 
in  a  better  condition.  The  action  of  the  army  against  the  rebels  has  not 
been  quite  what  I  should  have  best  liked.  But  they  have  been  driven 
out  of  Maryland,  and  Pennsylvania  is  no  longer  in  danger  of  invasion. 
When  the  rebel  army  was  at  Frederick,  I  determined  as  soon  as  it 
should  be  driven  out  of  Maryland  to  issue  a  proclamation  of  emanci 
pation,  such  as  I  thought  most  likely  to  be  useful.  I  said  nothing  to  any 
one,  but  I  made  a  promise  to  myself  and  (hesitating  a  little)  to  my 
Maker.  The  rebel  army  is  now  driven  out,  and  I  am  going  to  fulfil  that 
promise.  I  have  got  you  together  to  hear  what  I  have  written  down.  I 
do  not  wish  your  advice  about  the  main  matter,  for  that  I  have  determined 
for  myself.  This  I  say  without  intending  anything  but  respect  for  any 
one  of  you.  But  I  already  know  the  views  of  each  on  this  question. 
They  have  been  heretofore  expressed,  and  I  have  considered  them  as 
thoroughly  and  carefully  as  I  can.  What  I  have  written  is  that  which  my 
reflections  have  determined  me  to  say.  If  there  is  anything  in  the  ex 
pressions  I  use,  or  in  any  minor  matter  which  any  one  of  you  thinks  had 
best  be  changed,  I  shall  be  glad  to  receive  your  suggestions.  One  other 
observation  I  will  make.  I  know  very  well  that  many  others  might,  in 
this  matter  as  in  others,  do  better  than  I  can ;  and  if  I  was  satisfied  that 
the  public  confidence  was  more  fully  possessed  by  any  one  of  them  than 


LINCOLN  AND  EMANCIPATION.  541 

by  me,  and  knew  of  any  constitutional  way  in  which  he  could  be  put  in 
my  place,  he  should  have  it.  I  would  gladly  yield  it  to  him.  But  though 
I  believe  I  have  not  so  much  of  the  confidence  of  the  people  as  I  had 
some  time  since,  I  do  not  know  that,  all  things  considered,  any  other 
person  has  more ;  and,  however  this  may  be,  there  is  no  way  in  which  I 
can  have  any  other  man  put  where  I  am.  I  am  here.  I  must  do  the 
best  I  can  and  bear  the  responsibility  of  taking  the  course  which  I  feel 
I  ought  to  take.' 

"  The  President  then  proceeded  to  read  his  Emancipation  Proclama 
tion,  making  remarks  on  the  several  parts  as  he  went  on,  and  showing 
that  he  had  fully  considered  the  subject  in  all  the  lights  under  which  it 
had  been  presented  to  him." l 

The  Proclamation  was  amended  in  a  few  matters  of  detail. 
It  was  signed  and  published  that  day.  The  world  knows  the 
rest,  and  will  not  forget  it  till  "  the  last  syllable  of  recorded 
time." 

In  the  painting  before  us,  the  artist  has  chosen  the  moment 
when  the  reading  of  the  Proclamation  was  finished,  and  the 
Secretary  of  State  was  offering  his  first  suggestion.  I  profess 
no  skill  in  the  subtle  mysteries  of  art  criticism.  I  can  say  of  a 
painting  only  what  the  painting  says  to  me.  I  know  not  what 
this  may  say  to  others;  but  to  me  it  tells  the  whole  story  of 
the  scene  in  the  silent  and  pathetic  language  of  art. 

We  value  the  Trumbull  picture  of  the  Declaration  —  that 
promise  and  prophecy  of  which  this  act  was  the  fulfilment  — 
because  many  of  its  portraits  were  taken  from  actual  life.  This 
picture  is  a  faithful  reproduction,  not  only  of  the  scene,  but  of  its 
accessories.  It  was  painted  at  the  Executive  mansion,  under 
the  eye  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  sat  with  the  artist  during  many 
days  of  genial  companionship,  and  aided  him  in  arranging  the 
many  details  of  the  picture. 

The  severely  plain  chamber,  not  now  used  for  Cabinet  coun 
cils  ;  the  plain  marble  mantel,  with  the  portrait  of  a  hero  Presi 
dent  above  it;  the  council  table  at  which  Jackson  and  his 
successor  had  presided ;  the  old-fashioned  chairs ;  the  books 
and  maps;  the  captured  sword,  with  its  pathetic  history;  — all 
are  there,  as  they  were  in  fact  fifteen  years  ago.  But  what  is 
of  more  consequence,  the  portraits  are  true  to  the  life.  Mr. 
Seward  said  of  the  painting,  "  It  is  a  vivid  representation  of 

1  Life  and  Public  Services  of  Salmon  Portland  Chase,  by  J.  W.  Schuckers, 
PP-  453>  454  (New  York:  D.  Appleton  £  Co.,  1874). 


542  LINCOLN  AND  EMANCIPATION. 

the  scene,  with  portraits  of  rare  fidelity  " ;  and  so  said  all  his 
associates. 

Without  this  painting,  the  scene  could  not  even  now  be  repro 
duced.  The  room  has  been  remodelled ;  its  furniture  is  gone ; 
and  Death  has  been  sitting  in  that  council,  calling  the  roll  of  its 
members  in  quick  succession.  Yesterday  he  added  another 
name  to  his  fatal  list ;  and  to-day  he  has  left  upon  the  earth 
but  a  single  witness  of  the  signing  of  the  Proclamation  of 
Emancipation. 

With  reverence  and  patriotic  love,  the  artist  accomplished  his 
work ;  with  patriotic  love  and  reverent  faith,  the  donor  presents 
it  to  the  nation.  In  the  spirit  of  both,  let  the  reunited  nation 
receive  it  and  cherish  it  forever. 


THE  ARMY  AND  THE  PUBLIC  PEACE. 

SPEECH  DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 

MAY  21,    1878. 


SOON  after  the  Democratic  party  gained  the  control  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  in  December,  1875,  they  began  a  series  of  attempts  to 
reduce  the  size  and  impair  the  strength  of  the  army.  At  that  time  the 
number  of  enlisted  men  authorized  by  law  was  thirty  thousand.  June  i, 
1876,  the  House  passed  a  bill  that  reduced  the  cavalry  regiments  from 
ten  to  eight  and  the  infantry  regiments  from  twenty-five  to  twenty, 
abolished  the  regimental  organization  of  the  artillery,  consolidated  the 
Quartermaster's  and  Subsistence  Departments,  reorganized  the  Medical 
Department,  and  made  other  changes  of  less  importance  in  the  organiza 
tion  of  the  army.  No  action  was  had  upon  this  bill  in  the  Senate.  At 
the  session  of  1876-77,  the  Army  Appropriation  Bill  failed  to  pass,  be 
cause  the  House  insisted  upon  restricting  the  President's  power  to  use 
the  army  in  the  States  of  Louisiana  and  South  Carolina.  At  the  extra 
session  of  187 7,  the  House  put  upon  the  Army  Bill  for  the  fiscal  year  end 
ing  June  30,  1878,  a  proviso  "  that  nothing  herein  contained  shall  author 
ize  the  recruiting  the  number  of  men  on  the  army  rolls,  including  Indian 
scouts  and  hospital  stewards,  beyond  twenty  thousand  men  "  ;  but  the 
Senate  insisted  that  the  number  should  be  twenty-five  thousand,  and  the 
House  receded.  The  Army  Bill  for  the  next  fiscal  year,  as  reported 
from  the  Committee  on  Appropriations,  and  as  passed  by  the  House, 
limited  the  rank  and  file  of  the  army  to  twenty  thousand.  The  Senate 
again  insisted  on  twenty- five  thousand,  and  the  House  again  receded. 
The  act  as  finally  approved  contained  a  prohibition  of  the  use  of  any 
part  of  the  army  as  a  posse  comitatus,  or  otherwise  for  executing  the  laws 
except  as  expressly  authorized  by  the  Constitution  or  by  act  of  Congress  ; 
and  referred  the  reform  and  reorganization  of  the  army  to  a  commission 
of  three  Senators  and  five  Representatives.  Pending  the  bill  in  Com 
mittee  of  the  Whole  House,  in  the  form  reported  from  the  Committee 
on  Appropriations,  Mr.  Garfield  made  the  following  remarks. 


544         THE  ARMY  AND   THE  PUBLIC  PEACE. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,  — I  have  listened  with  great  interest 
to  the  discussion  of  this  subject,  and  especially  to  the 
speech  of  the  gentleman  from  New  York 1  who  opened  the  dis 
cussion.  In  many  points  of  his  speech  I  concur;  but  there  is 
one  main  point  in  the  bill  upon  which  I  differ  from  him  and 
from  the  majority  of  the  Committee  on  Appropriations.  It  is 
the  question  of  the  strength  of  the  army  which  we  ought  to 
maintain.  If  in  anything  I  have  heretofore  said  or  written  upon 
this  subject  I  have  unnecessarily  or  improperly  run  into  parti 
sanship,  I  shall  certainly  not  do  so  to-night. 

It  will  be  admitted  on  all  hands  that  the  conditions  of  this 
country  are  altogether  unlike  those  of  European  governments  in 
regard  to  the  character  and  methods  of  national  defence.  No 
man  can  read  the  tables  that  record  the  size  and  cost  of  the 
armies  of  Europe  without  a  sense  of  amazement.  Fortunately, 
we  are  so  situated  geographically  that  we  do  not  need  a  stand 
ing  army  on  any  such  scale  as  those  of  Europe.  When  I  find 
a  country  with  one  fourth  of  the  population  of  the  United 
States  maintaining  an  army  four  times  as  large  as  ours,  it  is 
with  a  just  pride  that  I  can  say  I  live  in  a  country  which, 
when  the  perils  of  war  come,  can  at  once  convert  the  mass 
of  its  citizens  into  a  column  of  defenders,  and  create  an  army 
and  a  navy  sufficient  to  meet  the  emergencies  of  a  great  war. 
But  while  I  say  that,  I  recognize  the  imperative  necessity  of 
maintaining  a  military  organization  of  the  best  kind  known 
among  men ;  and  such  an  army  every  patriotic  man  will  agree 
we  ought  to  maintain.  What  that  army  ought  to  be  is  a  fair 
question  for  debate.  There  have  been  for  many  years,  among 
military  men,  two  theories :  one  is  that  we  should  keep  up  only 
a  sufficient  force  in  all  branches  of  the  army  to  meet  the  imme 
diate  wants  of  actual  military  service ;  the  other  is  the  Calhoun 
theory,  that  we  ought  to  have  an  army  so  organized  and  disci 
plined  that,  when  a  sudden  emergency  comes  upon  us,  it  can 
be  expanded  by  mere  enlistment  to  double  or  quadruple  its 
size,  with  nothing  in  the  way  of  organization  to  new-model  or 
create.  Indeed,  this  was  the  theory  of  Washington,  but  Cal 
houn  stated  it  with  admirable  force  and  clearness,  and  thus 
gave  it  new  prominence,  in  i82O.2  It  has  been  the  generally 

1  Mr.  Hewitt. 

2  See  the  close  of  the  speech  on  "  The  Reduction  of  the  Army,"  Vol.  I.  p.  428. 


THE  ARMY  AND    THE  PUBLIC  PEACE.         545 

received  theory  of  American  statesmen  in  reference  to  our  army. 
Hence  I  was  sorry  to  see  the  gentleman  from  New  York  adopt 
the  other  theory,  and  abandon  the  plan  laid  down  by  General 
Sherman,  of  an  army  with  a  peace  maximum  of  twenty-five 
thousand,  but  which  can  be  expanded  to  two  hundred  thousand 
without  the  addition  of  a  single  regiment,  by  increasing  the  num 
ber  of  companies  and  filling  the  battalions  and  companies  to 
their  war  maximum.  Now,  it  may  be  that  this  is  too  extensive 
a  scheme;  it  may  not  be  the  best;  but,  in  my  judgment,  a  scheme 
that  is  capable  of  expansion  by  mere  enlistments  is  most  eco 
nomical,  is  wisest  for  the  country,  and  therefore  the  best. 

But  laying  this  subject  aside,  and  with  it  all  questions  of 
army  organization,  I  address  myself  for  a  few  moments  solely 
to  the  question  of  how  large  an  army  we  need.  I  do  not  now 
speak  so  much  of  the  officers  as  of  the  force  of  enlisted  men ; 
though  all,  I  think,  will  admit  that,  if  we  continue  the  skeleton 
plan,  we  must  keep  more  officers  than  would  be  barely  neces 
sary  to  command  the  troops  we  have.  We  must  have  officers 
enough  to  command  a  larger  force,  in  case  we  should  find  it 
necessary  to  expand  the  army.  I  hope  gentlemen  will  remem 
ber  the  striking  fact  called  to  our  attention  by  the  gentleman 
from  New  York,1  that,  in  our  century  of  national  existence,  one 
sixth  of  all  our  years  have  been  years  of  war,  not  counting 
Indian  wars ;  and  we  cannot  expect  to  live  through  the  next 
century  with  a  less  per  cent  of  war  years  than  we  have  had  in 
the  century  past. 

Now,  why  do  we  need  an  army?  First  and  foremost,  we  need 
it  to  keep  alive  the  knowledge  and  practice  of  military  science. 
If  we  knew  there  would  not  be  an  Indian  war,  or  a  foreign  war, 
in  our  generation,  —  if  we  knew  there  would  be  no  trouble  on 
any  part  of  our  borders,  —  I  should  still  say  we  needed  an  army 
large  enough  to  keep  alive  the  practical  knowledge  of  military 
science  and  art.  How  large  the  army  should  be  for  this  pur 
pose,  it  would  be  difficult  to  determine,  and  it  is  perhaps  unne 
cessary  to  discuss.  An  army  would  be  needed,  even  were  there 
no  immediate  danger  of  war;  but  we  have  no  guaranty  of  per 
petual  peace.  We  need  an  army  for  our  great  border.  Our 
northern  line  runs  from  ocean  to  ocean.  We  have  had  trouble 
on  that  border,  not  only  in  the  way  of  war,  but  also  in  the  way 
of  raids  that  have  threatened  the  public  peace.  Gentlemen  re- 

i  Mr.  McCook. 
VOL,  ii.  35 


546         THE  ARMY  AND    THE   PUBLIC  PEACE. 

siding  near  the  Vermont  line  remember  well  the  raids  that 
have  happened  there,  and  the  international  difficulties  that  have 
threatened  to  embroil  us  in  consequence. 

Our  southern  border,  though  shorter,  is  in  greater  need  of 
military  protection.  At  this  very  time  the  distinguished  gen 
tleman  from  Texas l  tells  us  of  the  serious  difficulties  on  that 
border,  where  we  have  a  dangerous  neighbor,  —  dangerous  not 
because  of  her  strength,  but  because  she  is  weak,  ill-governed, 
ill-disciplined,  and  revolutionary,  and  therefore  all  the  more 
liable  to  disturb  our  peace.  That  gentleman  reports  from  his 
committee,  that,  from  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande  to  El  Paso 
a  force  of  not  less  than  five  thousand  men  is  indispensable  to 
the  protection  of  the  peace  of  Texas.  This,  then,  is  the  condi 
tion  of  things  for  which  we  must  provide  on  that  frontier. 

We  have  now  a  possession  that  extends  almost  to  the  shores 
of  Asia,  —  a  possession  which,  if  the  great  war  now  threaten 
ing  Europe  shall  come,  will  require  looking  after  if  we  would 
take  care  of  our  international  relations  in  the  troubles  that  may 
arise  between  Russia  and  England.  Do  gentlemen  know  the 
striking  fact,  that  from  the  California  coast  to  the  westernmost 
point  of  Alaska  is  eight  hundred  miles  farther  than  it  is  from 
the  same  coast  to  the  easternmost  point  of  Maine? 

But,  leaving  Alaska  out  of  the  account  altogether,  the  enor 
mous  extension  of  our  frontier  settlements  within  the  last  few 
years  makes  old  calculations  obsolete  as  a  basis  for  determin 
ing  the  size  of  the  army.  The  gentleman  from  New  York  very 
properly  said  that  this  was  more  a  matter  of  posts  than  of  miles  ; 
and  I  wish  to  call  his  attention  to  the  test  by  posts.  In  1846 
we  had  an  army  of  13,374  men,  and  at  that  time  we  had  ten 
arsenals  and  thirty-nine  garrisoned  posts,  —  an  average  of  two 
hundred  and  sixty-five  soldiers  to  a  post.  I  take  it  that  nobody 
then  considered  our  army  too  large.  That  was  before  the  Mex- 
can  war  had  begun,  and  before  any  increase  of  force  had  been 
made  in  anticipation  of  that  war.  But  not  one  of  those  posts 
was  as  far  west  as  the  centres  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska.  In  1860, 
our  posts  had  increased  to  one  hundred  and  nine,  including  ar 
senals;  and  our  army  was  but  little  larger  than  in  1846.  But  in 
1878,  taking  the  lowest  figures  that  have  been  given,  our  arse 
nals  are  nineteen,  and  our  garrisoned  posts  one  hundred  and 
sixty-one ;  and  with  our  army  at  its  present  size  we  have  about 

i  Mr.  Schleicher. 


THE   ARMY  AND    THE  PUBLIC  PEACE.         547 

two  hundred  and  fifty  men  to  each  post,  —  a  number  smaller  by 
fifteen  than  we  had  thirty-two  years  ago.  Now  two  thirds  of 
all  the  posts  are  west  of  the  hundredth  meridian,  —  west  of  the 
westernmost  post  in  1846.  The  centre  of  our  population  is 
constantly  moving  westward;  but  the  frontier  line  of  settle 
ment  is  moving  much  more  rapidly.  The  pioneers  are  now 
scattered  throughout  that  vast  interior  empire  which  was  an 
untrodden  wilderness  thirty  years  ago,  and  the  necessity  of 
protection  against  the  Indians  is  more  urgent  now  than  then. 
Judged,  therefore,  by  the  number  of  posts,  judged  by  the 
spaces  occupied,  judged  by  the  line  of  national  boundaries, 
judged  on  any  of  the  grounds  by  which  we  can  measure  the 
proper  size  of  an  army,  we  have  relatively  a  smaller  army  to 
day  than  we  had  in  1 846. 

MR.  HEWITT.  My  friend  from  Ohio  has  omitted  to  make  a  compari 
son  with  1860.  If  he  will  refer  to  that  period,  he  will  find  that  the  num 
ber  of  men  at  our  posts  then  averaged  a  little  over  one  hundred. 

In  1860  the  average  number  at  each  of  our  posts  was  about 
one  hundred  and  thirty,  according  to  my  estimate,  and  was  in 
sufficient;  but  the  great  interior  between  the  one  hundredth 
meridian  and  the  Sierras  was  hardly  touched  by  the  advancing 
tide  of  settlement. 

I  have  been  reasoning  upon  the  size  of  an  army  as  it  exists 
on  paper.  I  wish  to  say  to  gentlemen  that  it  is  the  opinion 
of  all  men  who  are  competent  judges  of  the  question,  that  the 
paper  strength  of  our  army,  widely  distributed  as  it  now  is, 
must  be  reduced  one  third  in  order  to  get  its  real,  effective 
strength.  I  believe  there  is  no  great  manufactory  anywhere  in 
the  United  States,  when  all  the  machinery  is  running  and  the 
hands  are  in  full  force,  whose  superintendent  will  not  tell  you  he 
must  subtract  ten  per  cent  at  least  for  the  casualties  which  occur 
day  by  day.  If  he  has  a  thousand  hands  in  his  service,  when  the 
ordinary  loss,  from  sickness  and  other  casualties  is  taken  into 
account,  the  effective  force  per  day  will  not  be  more  than  nine 
hundred.  The  percentage  of  loss  is  obviously  much  greater  in 
an  army  scattered,  as  ours  is,  over  many  thousands  of  miles. 

The  reasons  for  this  g'reat  reduction  of  effective  strength  can 
be  seen  at  a  glance.  They  are  the  casualties  of  sickness  from 
exposure;  death  and  wounds  in  skirmish  and  battle;  desertion, 
a  most  serious  element,  which  does  not  apply  in  any  ordinary 


548         THE  ARMY  AND   THE  PUBLIC  PEACE. 

business;  expiration  of  the  term  of  enlistment ;  and,  finally,  the 
necessary  loss  of  time  which  elapses  between  the  loss  of  one 
soldier  and  the  recruiting,  drilling,  and  getting  to  the  post  of 
his  successor.  It  takes  usually  about  four  months  from  the 
time  of  his  enlistment  to  get  a  recruit  to  his  post  in  a  state  of 
efficiency.  Accordingly,  General  Sherman  tells  me  that  he 
can  never  reckon  the  effective  force  of  our  peace  establish 
ment  at  more  than  two  thirds  of  the  paper  force.  Now,  if  we 
«  make  our  army  on  paper  twenty-five  thousand,  its  effective  force 
'•will  not  exceed  sixteen  thousand  five  hundred.  If  we  make 
it  on  paper  twenty  thousand,  we  must  reduce  that  number 
one  third  to  find  the  effective  force.  The  pending  propo 
sition  is  therefore  to  give  us  an  army  of  but  thirteen  thousand 
five  hundred  effective  men,  which  I  believe  to  be  a  dangerous 
reduction. 

I  have  mentioned  all  the  leading  reasons  save  one  why  we 
should  maintain  an  army  and  that  one  I  approach  reluctantly ; 
but  I  deem  it  my  duty  to  speak  plainly.  Of  all  the  passages  in 
the  speech  of  my  distinguished  friend  from  New  York,  the  one 
which  was  to  me  least  satisfactory,  both  in  its  statement  and  its 
logic,  was  that  in  regard  to  the  necessity  of  an  army  for  keep 
ing  the  peace  within  the  States.  Let  me  read  a  paragraph,  and 
while  I  read  let  us  forget  party  if  we  can,  and  everything  but 
the  fact  that  we  are  American  citizens.  Let  us,  for  a  few  mo 
ments,  reflect  upon  questions  which  may  in  the  near  future  rise 
above,  and  possibly  for  a  time  overwhelm,  all  political  organi 
zations  in  this  country,  if  they  are  not  handled  plainly,  justly, 
courageously,  by  the  American  people.  The  gentleman  from 
New  York  said  :  — 

"  Now  we  are  told  that  we  ought  to  have  a  large  army,  and  a  very  large 
army,  in  order  to  put  down  impending  strikes.  I  take  issue  with  that 
proposition.  It  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  theory  of  this  government 
that  the  United  States  is  to  maintain  an  army  for  the  purpose  of  restrain 
ing  any  portion  of  its  citizens  in  their  just  rights.  The  right  to  strike  is 
a  just  right.  No  man  can  coerce  another  to  do  work  against  his  will. 
It  is  just  as  sacred  a  right  as  the  right  to  employ,  if  you  can  find  some 
body  who  is  willing  to  hire  himself  out  to  you.  The  wisdom  of  strikes  is 
quite  another  matter."  l 

I       Now  I  agree  absolutely  with  that  statement;   but  I  submit 
1  that  it  is  a  statement  which  so  far  as  I  know  nobody  ever  con- 

1  Congressional  Record,  May  18,  1878,  page  3538. 


THE  ARMY  AND    THE  PUBLIC  PEACE.         549 

troverted  in  this  country.  With  all  kindness  to  the  gentleman, 
he  has  set  up  a  man  of  straw  and  knocked  it  down  valorously. 
I  have  never  heard  of  an  American  who  denied  the  right  of  any 
man  to  refuse  to  work.  I  have  never  heard  of  an  American 
anywhere  who  denied  the  right  of  a  thousand  or  ten  thousand 
men  to  refuse  to  work  unless  their  wages  were  increased,  or  to 
refuse  to  work  if  their  wages  were  diminished.  It  is  a  right  as 
broad  and  universal  as  American  liberty.  But  that  is  not  the 
thing  anybody  has  denounced,  so  far  as  I  know.  The  gentle 
man  neither  grapples  with  nor  states  the  dangerous  element 
connected  with  the  subject.  I  can  do  as  I  please  about  working 
for  you ;  I  can  refuse  to  work  at  low  wages,  or  high  wages,  or 
any  wages;  but  when  I  unite  with  others,  and  by  force  and 
violence  prevent  you  from  working,  I  have  violated  your  right 
as  a  laborer  and  as  a  man.  The  real  mischief  and  wrong  at 
tending  many  strikes  has  been  this :  that  mea  who  needed  the 
opportunity  to  work,  who  were  ready  to  work,  and  who  were 
reasonably  satisfied  with  their  opportunities  for  work,  have  been 
coerced,  menaced,  driven,  overpowered,  forbidden  to  work; 
and  thus  men  have  sometimes  been  deprived  of  the  free  exer 
cise  of  their  right  to  work,  because  somebody  else  wanted  to 
manage  their  affairs  for  them.  That  has  been  the  mischief  of 
American  strikes. 

Now,  while  I  hold  to  the  right  of  all  laborers  to  manage  their 
own  affairs,  each  for  himself,  I  say  it  at  whatever  hazard,  the 
man  who  lays  any  obstacle  in  the  way  of  any  American  which 
prevents  him  from  working  is  a  breaker  of  the  law  and  a  vio 
lator  of  the  first  right  of  a  laborer. 

MR.  BANKS.  How  is  it  with  capitalists  who  combine  with  other  capi 
talists  against  the  employed  ? 

It  is  just  as  great  a  violation  of  the  law,  and  is  deserving  of 
just  as  great,  and,  if  possible,  greater  condemnation. 

It  is  not  the  strikes,  it  is  not  the  proper  and  lawful  refusal  of 
laborers  to  be  oppressed  by  capitalists,  that  threatens  the  pub 
lic  peace;  but  it  is  the  unlawful  interference  with  the  rights 
of  laborers,  the  spirit  of  mob  violence  and  misrule,  —  a  spirit 
not  born  on  our  soil,  nor  in  harmony  with  our  traditions ;  it  is 
"  the  red  fool-fury  of  the  Seine  "  transplanted  here,  taking  root 
in  our  disasters,  and  drawing  its  life  only  from  our  misfortunes, 
which  has  lately  so  seriously  threatened,  and  may  still  more 
seriously  imperil,  the  stability  of  our  institutions. 


550         THE  ARMY  AND    THE  PUBLIC  PEACE. 

Gentlemen  tell  us  it  is  the  business  of  the  States  to  protect 
their  citizens  against  insurrection  and  violence.  But  our  fathers 
provided  a  stronger  defence  for  moments  of  supreme  peril.  The 
American  people  are  not  likely  soon  to  forget  the  events  of  July 
last,  when,  in  a  great  group  of  States  belting  the  continent 
from  ocean  to  ocean,  the  lives  and  property  of  many  millions  of 
citizens  were  rescued  from  sudden  and  imminent  peril  by  the 
prompt  and  effective  response  of  our  army  to  the  constitutional 
demand  of  the  States  for  its  aid.  Here,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  hold 
in  my  hand  the  copies  of  brief  but  eloquent  letters  and  tele 
grams  from  ten  great  States  of  this  Union, — all  of  them  sent 
within  the  space  of  one  week,  —  calling  upon  the  President  of 
the  United  States  for  help ;  ten  great  States,  reaching  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  —  Maryland  and  West  Virginia  among 
them ;  ten  great  States,  among  them  California  and  the  empire 
States  of  the  Northwest,  calling  for  the  arms  of  the  republic  to 
shield  and  save  them  in  their  hour  of  distress.  Had  we  been 
at  that  moment  in  session,  do  you  think  we  would  have  voted  to 
reduce  the  army  to  twenty  thousand  men?  Should  we  not 
rather  have  put  it  up  to  fifty  thousand  ?  I  therefore  say  boldly, 
while  I  will  do  as  much  as  he  who  will  do  most  to  secure  the 
rights  of  labor  against  iniquitous  laws  and  against  the  assaults 
of  capital  when  used  unjustly,  yet  against  all  comers  I  am  for 
the  reign  of  law  in  this  republic  and  for  an  army  large  enough 
to  make  it  sure. 

I  trust,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  the  gentleman  from  New  York  — 
whose  material  stake  in  the  stability  and  good  order  of  the  Union 
is  much  greater  than  mine  —  will  consent  to  an  amendment 
to  fix  the  number  of  the  army  for  the  coming  year  at  twenty-five 
thousand  men,  where  it  now  is,  and  let  the  bill  be  recommitted, 
so  that  his  committee  may  reconstruct  it  in  harmony  with  the 
amendment.  The  details  of  organization  might  then  be  left  to 
a  commission,  which  can  report  to  us  at  the  beginning  of  our 
next  session.  I  trust  that  in  these  remarks  I  have  wounded  the 
sensibility  of  no  gentleman ;  for  I  have  spoken  no  word  in  the 
spirit  of  partisanship. 


NOTE.  —  This  speech,  like  many  of  Mr.  Garfield's  speeches  delivered 
in  1877  and  1878,  contained  a  discussion  of  the  Macaulay  letter  of  1857. 
The  discussion  is  omitted  in  all  these  speeches,  because  a  fuller  one  is 
found  in  "The  Future  of  the  Republic,"  anfe,  pp.  53,  54. 


THE  WOOD   TARIFF   BILL. 

SPEECH  DELIVERED   IN   THE  HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 

JUNE  4,  1878. 


MR.  FERNANDO  WOOD,  of  New  York,  Chairman  of  the  House  Com 
mittee  of  Ways  and  Means,  reported  from  that  committee,  March  26, 
1878,  a  bill  to  impose  duties  upon  foreign  imports,  to  promote  trade  and 
commerce,  to  reduce  taxation,  and  for  other  purposes.  The  bill  came 
up  for  discussion,  April  9,  and  was  discussed  from  time  to  time  until 
June  5,  when  the  House  struck  out  the  enacting  clause.  In  Committee 
of  the  Whole,  May  8,  Mr.  J.  R.  Tucker,  of  Virginia,  made  a  speech  in 
advocacy  of  the  bill.  Mr.  Garfield  replied,  June  4,  in  the  following 
speech,  also  delivered  in  committee.  The  bill  was  a  so-called  "  Free- 
Trade  "  measure. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —The  time  which  is  left  for  general  de 
bate  upon  this  bill  will  not  permit  anything  like  an  elab 
orate  discussion  of  its  merits.  The  subject  is  so  full  of  details, 
and  involves  so  many  important  questions,  that  in  the  hour 
assigned  to  me  to  close  the  debate  I  can  do  no  more  than 
present  a  few  general  considerations  which  will  guide  my  own 
action. 

A  few  days  ago,  the  distinguished  gentleman  from  Virginia 
who  now  occupies  the  chair  l  made  a  speech  of  rare  ability  and 
power,  in  which  he  placed  in  the  front  of  his  line  of  discussion 
a  question  that  was  never  raised  in  American  legislation  until 
our  present  form  of  government  was  forty  years  old,  —  the  ques 
tion  of  the  constitutionality  of  a  tariff  for  the  encouragement 
and  protection  of  manufactures.  The  first  page  of  the  printed 
speech  of  the  gentleman,  as  it  appears  in  the  Congressional 

i  Mr.  Tucker. 


552  THE    WOOD   TARIFF  BILL. 

Record,  is  devoted  to  an  elaborate  and  very  able  discussion  of 
that  question. 

He  insists  that  the  two  powers  conferred  upon  Congress,  to 
levy  duties  and  to  regulate  commerce,  are  entirely  distinct  from 
each  other;  that  the  one  cannot  by  any  fair  construction  be 
applied  to  the  other ;  that  the  methods  of  the  one  are  not  the 
methods  of  the  other ;  and  that  the  capital  mistake  which  has 
been  made  in  the  legislation  of  the  country  for  many  years 
is,  that  the  power  to  tax  has  been  applied  to  the  regulation 
of  commerce,  and  through  that  to  the  protection  of  manu 
factures.  He  holds  that,  if  we  were  to  adopt  a  proper  con 
struction  of  the  Constitution,  we  should  find  that  the  regulation 
of  commerce  does  not  permit  the  protection  of  manufactures, 
and  that  the  power  to  tax  cannot  be  applied,  directly  or  indi 
rectly,  to  that  object. 

I  will  not  enter  into  any  elaborate  discussion  of  that  question, 
but  I  cannot  refrain  from  expressing  my  admiration  of  the 
courage  of  the  gentleman  from  Virginia,  who  in  that  part  of 
his  speech  brought  himself  into  point-blank  range  of  the  terri 
ble  artillery  of  James  Madison,  one  of  the  fathers  of  the  Con 
stitution,  and  Virginia's  great  expounder  of  its  provisions. 
More  than  a  hundred  pages  of  the  collected  works  of  Mr. 
Madison  are  devoted  to  an  elaborate  and  exhaustive  discussion 
of  the  very  objections  which  the  gentleman  has  urged. 

In  a  letter  addressed  to  Joseph  C.  Cabell,  on  the  i8th  of 
March,1  1827,  will  be  found  thirteen  categorical  reasons  against 
the  very  constitutional  theory  now  advanced  by  the  gentleman 
from  Virginia.  It  would  almost  seem  that  the  distinguished 
author  of  the  book  which  I  hold  in  my  hand  had  prophetically 
in  his  mind  the  very  speech  delivered  in  this  House  by  the 
later  Virginian,  for  he  refutes  its  arguments,  point  by  point, 
thoroughly  and  completely.  I  will  quote  a  few  paragraphs. 

"  It  has  been  objected  to  the  encouragement  of  domestic  manufactures 
by  a  tariff  on  imported  ones,  that  duties  and  imposts  are  in  the  clause 
specifying  the  sources  of  revenue,  and  therefore  cannot  be  applied  to 
the  encouragement  of  manufactures  when  not  a  source  of  revenue. 

"But,  i.  It  does  not  follow  from  the  applicability  of  duties  and 
imposts  under  one  clause  for  one  usual  purpose,  that  they  are  excluded 
from  an  applicability  under  another  clause  to  another  purpose,  also 

1  The  letter  to  Cabell  is  dated  the  i8th,  but  the  "  reasons'"  are  dated  the  22d  of 
March. 


THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL.  553 

requiring  them,  and  to  which  they  have  also  been  usually  applied.  2.  A 
history  of  that  clause,  as  traced  in  the  printed  journal  of  the  Federal 
Convention,  will  throw  light  on  the  subject. 

"  It  appears  that  the  clause,  as  it  originally  stood,  simply  expressed 
'a  power  to  lay  taxes,  duties,  imposts,  and  excises/  without  pointing 
out  the  objects ;  and,  of  course,  leaving  them  applicable  in  carrying 
into  effect  the  other  specified  powers.  It  appears,  farther,  that  a  solici 
tude  to  prevent  any  constructive  danger  to  the  validity  of  public  debts 
contracted  under  the  superseded  form  of  government  led  to  the  addition 
of  the  words  '  to  pay  the  debts.'  This  phraseology  having  the  appear 
ance  of  an  appropriation  limited  to  the  payment  of  debts,  an  express 
appropriation  was  added  '  for  the  expenses  of  the  government,'  etc. 

"  But  even  this  was  considered  as  short  of  the  objects  for  which 
taxes,  duties,  imposts,  and  excises  might  be  required ;  and  the  more 
comprehensive  provision  was  made  by  substituting  [for  the  words]  '  for 
expenses  of  the  government '  the  terms  of  the  old  Confederation,  viz. 
*  and  provide  for  the  common  defence  and  general  welfare,'  making 
duties  and  imposts,  as  well  as  taxes  and  excises,  applicable  not  only  to 
payment  of  debts,  but  to  the  common  defence  and  general  welfare. 

"  The  question  then  is,  What  is  the  import  of  that  phrase,  '  common 
defence  and  general  welfare,'  in  its  actual  connection?  The  import 
which  Virginia  has  always  asserted,  and  still  contends  for,  is,  that  they 
are  explained  and  limited  to  the  enumerated  objects  subjoined  to  them, 
among  which  objects  is  the  regulation  of  foreign  commerce ;  as  far, 
therefore,  as  a  tariff  of  duties  is  necessary  and  proper  in  regulating 
foreign  commerce  for  any  of  the  usual  purposes  of  such  regulations,  it 
may  be  imposed  by  Congress,  and  consequently  for  the  purpose  of 
encouraging  manufactures,  which  is  a  well-known  purpose  for  which 
duties  and  imposts  have  been  usually  employed.  This  view  of  the 
clause  providing  for  revenue,  instead  of  interfering  with  or  excluding 
the  power  of  regulating  foreign  trade,  corroborates  the  rightful  exercise 
of  power  for  the  encouragement  of  domestic  manufactures."  l 

11  i.  The  meaning  of  the  power  to  regulate  commerce  is  to  be  sought 
in  the  general  use  of  the  phrase  ;  in  other  words,  in  the  objects  gener 
ally  understood  to  be  embraced  by  the  power  when  it  was  inserted  in 
the  Constitution.  2.  The  power  has  been  applied,  in  the  form  of  a 
tariff,  to  the  encouragement  of  particular  domestic  occupations  by  every 
existing  commercial  nation.  3.  It  has  been  so  used  and  applied,  par 
ticularly  and  systematically  by  Great  Britain,  whose  commercial  vocabu 
lary  is  the  parent  of  ours.  4.  The  inefficacy  of  the  power  in  relation  to 
manufactures,  as  well  as  to  other  objects,  when  exercised  by  the  States 
separately,  was  among  the  arguments  and  inducements  for  revising  the 
old  Confederation,  and  transferring  the  power  from  the  States  to  the 
1  Writings  of  James  Madison,  Vol.  III.  pp.  656,  657. 


554  THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL. 

government  of  the  United  States.  Nor  can  it  be  supposed  that  the  States 
actually  engaged  in  certain  branches  of  manufactures,  and  foreseeing  an 
increase  of  them,  would  have  surrendered  the  whole  power  over  com 
merce  to  the  general  government."  l 

"  The  proceedings  and  debates  of  the  First  Congress  under  the  pres 
ent  Constitution  will  show  that  the  power  was  generally,  perhaps  univer 
sally,  regarded  as  indisputable. 

"  Throughout  the  succeeding  Congresses,  till  a  very  late  date,  the 
power  over  commerce  has  been  exercised  or  admitted  so  as  to  bear  on  in 
ternal  objects  of  utility  or  policy,  without  a  reference  to  revenue 

"  Every  President,  from  General  Washington  to  Mr.  J.  Q.  Adams 
inclusive,  has  recognized  the  power  of  a  tariff  in  favor  of  manufactures, 
without  indicating  a  doubt,  or  that  a  doubt  existed  anywhere. 

"  Virginia  appears  to  be  the  only  State  that  now  denies,  or  ever  did 
deny,  the  power ;  nor  are  there,  perhaps,  more  than  a  very  few  individ 
uals,  if  a  single  one,  in  the  State,  who  will  not  admit  the  power  in  favor  of 
internal  fabrics,  or  productions  necessary  for  public  defence  on  the  water 
or  the  land.  To  bring  the  protecting  duty  in  those  cases  within  the  war 
power  would  require  a  greater  latitude  of  construction  than  to  refer  them 
to  the  power  of  regulating  trade. 

"  A  construction  of  the  Constitution  practised  upon  or  acknowledged 
for  a  period  of  nearly  forty  years,  has  received  a  national  sanction  not  to 
be  reversed  but  by  an  evidence  at  least  equivalent  to  the  national  will. 
If  every  new  Congress  were  to  disregard  a  meaning  of  the  instrument 
uniformly  sustained  by  their  predecessors  for  such  a  period,  there  would 
be  less  stability  in  that  fundamental  law  than  is  required  for  the  public 
good  in  the  ordinary  expositions  of  law."  2 

I  say  that  more  than  a  hundred  pages  of  Madison's  works  are 
devoted  to  discussing  and  exploding  what  was,  in  1827,  a  new 
notion  of  constitutional  construction.  In  one  of  these  papers 
he  calls  to  mind  the  fact,  that  sixteen  of  the  men  who  framed 
the  Constitution  sat  in  the  First  Congress,  and  helped  to  frame 
a  tariff  expressly  for  the  protection  of  domestic  industries ;  and 
it  is  fair  to  presume  that  these  men  understood  the  meaning  of 
the  Constitution. 

I  will  close  this  phase  of  the  discussion  by  calling  the  atten 
tion  of  the  committee  to  the  language  of  the  Constitution  itself: 
"  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  lay  and  collect  taxes, 
duties,  imposts,  and  excises,  to  pay  the  debts  and  provide  for 
the  common  defence  and  general  welfare  of  the  United  States."  3 

1  Writings  of  James  Madison,  Vol.  III.  pp.  571,  572.  3  Art.  i,  Sect.  8. 

2  Ibid-,  PP-  572,  573- 


THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL.  555 

Language  declaring  the  great  general  objects  to  which  the  tax 
ing  power  is  to  be  applied  could  hardly  be  plainer. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  revenue  is  the  life-blood  of  a 
government,  circulating  through  every  part  of  its  organization, 
and  giving  force  and  vitality  to  every  function.  The  power  to 
tax  is  therefore  the  great  motive  power;  and  its  regulation 
impels,  retards,  restrains,  or  limits  all  the  functions  of  the  gov 
ernment.  What  are  these  functions? 

The  Constitution  authorizes  Congress  to  regulate  and  control 
this  great  motive  power,  the  power  to  levy  and  collect  duties ; 
and  the  objects  for  which  duties  are  to  be  levied  and  collected 
are  summarized  in  three  great  groups.  First,  to  pay  debts.  By 
this,  the  arm  of  the  government  sweeps  over  all  its  past  history, 
and  protects  its  honor  by  discharging  all  obligations  that  have 
come  down  from  former  years.  Second,  to  "  provide  for  the 
common  defence."  By  this,  the  mailed  arm  of  the  government 
sweeps  the  great  circle  of  the  Union  to  defend  it  against  foes 
from  without  and  insurrection  within.  And,  third,  to  provide 
for  the  "  general  welfare."  These  are  the  three  great  objects 
to  which  the  Constitution  applies  the  power  of  taxation.  They 
are  all  great,  beneficent,  national  objects,  and  cannot  be  argued 
out  of  existence. 

The  fifteen  specifications  immediately  following  in  the  same 
section  —  such  as  the  power  to  raise  armies,  to  maintain  a  navy, 
to  establish  courts,  to  coin  •  money,  to  regulate  commerce  with 
foreign  nations  and  among  the  several  States,  to  promote  science 
and  the  useful  arts  by  granting  patents  and  copyrights  —  are 
all  specifications  and  limitations  of  the  methods  by  which  this 
great  central  power  of  taxation  is  to  be  applied  to  the  common 
defence  and  the  general  welfare.  And  it  is  left  to  the  discretion 
of  Congress  to  determine  how  these  objects  shall  be  secured  by 
the  use  of  the  powers  thus  conferred  upon  it. 

The  men  who  created  this  Constitution  also  set  it  in  operation, 
and  developed  their  own  idea  of  its  character.  That  idea  was 
unlike  any  other  that  then  prevailed  upon  the  earth.  They 
made  the  general  welfare  of  the  people  the  great  source  and 
foundation  of  the  common  defence.  In  all  the  nations  of  the 
Old  World  the  public  defence  was  provided  for  by  great  stand 
ing  armies,  navies,  and  fortified  posts,  so  that  the  nation  might 
every  moment  be  fully  armed  against  danger  from  without  or 
turbulence  within.  Our  fathers  said :  "  Though  we  will  use  the 


556  THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL. 

taxing  power  to  maintain  a  small  army  and  navy,  sufficient  to 
keep  alive  the  knowledge  of  war,  yet  the  main  reliance  for  our 
defence  shall  be  the  intelligence,  culture,  and  skill  of  our  people  ; 
a  development  of  our  own  intellectual  and  material  resources, 
which  will  enable  us  to  do  everything  that  may  be  necessary  to 
equip,  clothe,  and  feed  ourselves  in  time  of  war,  and  make  our 
selves  intelligent,  happy,  and  prosperous  in  peace." 

To  lay  the  foundation  for  the  realization  of  these  objects  was 
a  leading  motive  which  led  to  the  formation  of  the  Constitution, 
and  was  the  earliest  and  greatest  object  of  solicitude  in  the  first 
Congress. 

Two  days  after  the  votes  for  President  were  counted,  and  long 
before  Washington  was  inaugurated,  James  Madison  rose  in  the 
first  House  of  Representatives  and  made  the  first  motion  to  go 
into  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the  state  of  the  Union,  for 
the  express  purpose  of  carrying  out  the  theory  of  the  Constitu 
tion  to  provide  for  the  common  defence  and  the  general  welfare, 
both  by  regulating  commerce  and  protecting  American  manu 
factures.  Thus,  on  the  8th  of  April,  1789,  he  opened  a  debate 
which  lasted  several  weeks,  in  which  was  substantially  developed 
every  idea  that  has  since  appeared  save  one,  the  idea  that  it 
is  unconstitutional  to  protect  American  industry.  All  other 
phases  of  the  subject  were  fully  and  thoroughly  handled  in  that 
first  great  debate. 

Our  fathers  had  been  disciplined  in  the  severe  school  of  'ex 
perience  during  the  long  period  of  Colonial  dependence.  The 
heavy  hand  of  British  repression  was  laid  upon  all  their  at 
tempts  to  become  a  self-supporting  people.  The  navigation 
laws  and  commercial  regulations  of  the  mother  country  were 
based  upon  the  theory  that  the  Colonies  were  founded  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  raising  up  customers  for  her  trade.  They  were 
allowed  to  purchase  in  British  markets  alone  any  manufactured 
article  which  England  had  to  sell.  In  short,  they  were  com 
pelled  to  trade  with  England  on  her  own  terms ;  and  whether 
buying  or  selling,  the  product  must  be  carried  in  British  bot 
toms  at  the  carrier's  own  price.  In  addition  to  this,  a  revenue 
tax  of  five  per  cent  was  imposed  on  all  Colonial  exports  and 
imports. 

The  Colonists  were  doomed  to  the  servitude  of  furnishing,  by 
the  simplest  forms  of  labor,  raw  materials  for  the  mother  coun 
try,  who  arrogated  to  herself  the  sole  right  to  supply  the  Col- 


THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL.  557 

onies  with  the  finished  product.  To  our  fathers,  independence 
was  emancipation  from  this  servitude.  They  knew  that  civiliza 
tion  advanced  from  the  hunting  to  the  pastoral  state,  from  the 
pastoral  to  the  agricultural,  which  has  such  charms  for  the  dis 
tinguished  gentleman  from  Virginia.  But  they  knew  also  that 
no  merely  agricultural  people  had  ever  been  able  to  rise  to  a 
high  civilization  and  to  self-supporting  independence.  They 
determined,  therefore,  to  make  their  emancipation  complete  by 
adding  to  agriculture  the  mechanic  arts,  which  in  their  turn 
would  carry  agriculture  and  all  other  industries  to  a  still  higher 
development,  and  place  our  people  in  the  front  rank  of  civilized 
and  self-supporting  nations.  This  idea  inspired  the  legislation 
of  all  the  earlier  Congresses.  It  found  expression  in  the  first 
tariff  act,  that  of  1789;  in  the  higher  rates  of  the  act  of  1790; 
and  in  the  still  larger  schedule  and  increased  rates  of  the  acts 
of  1797  and  1800. 

In  1806  the  Non-Importation  Act  forbade  the  importation 
of  British  manufactures  of  silk,  cloth,  nails,  spikes,  brass,  tin, 
and  many  other  articles ;  and  the  eight  years  of  embargo  wit 
nessed  a  great  growth  in  American  manufactures.  When  the 
Non-Importation  Act  was  repealed,  in  1814,  John  C.  Calhoun 
assured  the  country  that  Congress  would  not  fail  to  provide 
other  adequate  means  of  promoting  the  development  of  our 
industries;  and,  under  his  lead,  the  protective  tariff  of  1816 
was  enacted. 

I  have  given  this  brief  historical  sketch  for  the  purpose  of 
exhibiting  the  ideas  out  of  which  the  tariff  legislation  of  this 
country  has  sprung.  It  received  the  support  of  the  most  re 
nowned  names  in  our  early  history ;  and,  though  the  principle 
of  protection  has  sometimes  been  carried  to  an  unreasonable 
extreme,  thus  bringing  reproach  upon  the  system,  it  has  never 
theless  borne  many  of  the  fruits  which  were  anticipated  by  those 
who  planted  the  germ. 

Gentlemen  who  oppose  this  view  of  public  policy  tell  us  that 
they  favor  a  tariff  for  revenue  only.  I  therefore  invite  their  at 
tention  to  the  revenue  phase  of  the  question. 

The  estimated  expenditures  for  the  next  fiscal  year  are 
$280,500,000,  including  interest  on  the  public  debt  and  the 
appropriations  required  by  law  for  the  sinking  fund.  The 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  estimates  the  revenues  which  our 
present  laws  will  furnish  to  be  $269,000,000; — from  customs, 


558  THE    WOOD   TARIFF  BILL. 

$133,000,000;  from  internal  revenue,  $120,000,000;  and  from 
miscellaneous  sources,  $16,000,000.  He  tells  us  that  it  will  be 
necessary  to  cut  down  the  expenditures  $11,000,000  below  the 
estimates  in  order  to  prevent  a  deficit  of  that  amount.  The 
revenues  of  the  last  fiscal  year  failed  by  $3,250,000  to  meet 
the  expenditures  required  by  law. 

In  the  face  of  these  facts,  can  we  safely  diminish  our  revenues? 
If  we  mean  to  preserve  the  public  faith  and  meet  all  the  neces 
sities  of  the  government,  we  cannot  reduce  the  present  revenues 
a  single  dollar.  Yet  the  majority  of  this  House  not  only  pro 
pose  to  reduce  the  internal  tax  on  spirits  and  tobacco,  but  they 
propose  in  this  bill  to  reduce  the  revenues  on  customs  by 
at  least  $6,000,000.  To  avoid  the  disgrace  of  a  deficit,  they 
propose  to  suspend  the  operations  of  the  sinking  fund,  and 
thereby  shake  the  foundation  of  the  public  credit.  But  they 
tell  us  that  some  of  the  reductions  made  in  this  bill  will  in 
crease  rather  than  diminish  the  revenue.  Perhaps  on  a  few 
articles  this  will  be  true ;  but  as  a  whole  it  is  undeniable  that 
this  bill  will  effect  a  considerable  reduction  in  the  revenues 
from  customs. 

Gentlemen  on  the  other  side  have  been  in  the  habit  of  de 
nouncing  our  present  tariff  laws  as  destructive  to  revenue  rather 
than  productive  of  it.  Let  me  invite  their  attention  to  a  few 
plain  facts. 

During  the  fifteen  years  that  preceded  our  late  war  —  a  period 
of  so-called  revenue  tariffs — we  raised  from  customs  an  average 
annual  revenue  of  $47,500,000,  but  never  in  any  year  received 
more  than  $64,000,000.  That  system  brought  us  a  heavy  defi 
cit  in  1860,  so  that  Congress  was  compelled  to  borrow  money 
to  meet  the  ordinary  expenses  of  the  government. 

Do  these  gentlemen  tell  us  that  our  present  law  fails  to  pro 
duce  an  adequate  revenue?  They  denounce  it  as  not  a  revenue 
tariff.  Let  them  wrestle  with  the  following  fact:  during  the 
eleven  years  that  have  passed  since  the  close  of  the  war  we 
have  averaged  $170,500,000  of  revenue  per  annum  from  cus 
toms  alone.  Can  they  say  that  is  not  a  revenue  tariff  which 
produces  more  than  three  times  as  much  revenue  per  annum  as 
the  law  did  which  they  delight  to  call  "  the  revenue  tariff"? 
In  one  year,  1872,  the  revenues  from  customs  amounted  to 
$212,000,000.  Can  they  say  that  the  present  law  does  not  pro 
duce  revenue?  It  produces  from  textile  fabrics  alone  more 


THE    WOOD   TARIFF  BILL. 


559 


revenue  than  we  ever  raised  from  all  sources  under  any  tariff 
before  the  war.  From  this  it  follows  that  the  assault  upon  the 
present  law  fails  if  made  on  the  score  of  revenue  alone. 

I  freely  admit  that  revenue  is  the  primary  object  of  taxation. 
That  object  is  attained  by  existing  law.  But  it  is  an  incidental 
and  vitally  important  object  of  the  law  to  keep  in  healthy 
growth  those  industries  which  are  necessary  to  the  well-being 
of  the  whole  country.  If  gentlemen  can  show  me  that  this  is, 
as  they  allege,  class  legislation,  which  benefits  the  few  at  the 
expense  of  the  many,  I  will  abandon  it,  and  join  them  in  oppos 
ing  it.  This  is  the  legislature  of  the  nation,  and  it  should  make 
laws  which  will  bless  the  whole  nation.  I  do  not  affirm  that  all 
the  provisions  of  the  existing  tariff  law  are*  wise  and  just.  In 
many  respects  they  are  badly  adjusted,  and  need  amendment. 
But  I  insist  that,  in  their  main  features,  they  are  national,  not 
partial;  that  they  promote  the  general  welfare,  and  not  the 
welfare  of  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many. 

Let  us  glance  at  the  leading  industries  which,  under  the  pro 
visions  of  the  existing  law,  are  enabled  to  maintain  themselves 
in  the  sharp  struggle  of  competition  with  other  countries.  I 
will  name  them  in  five  groups. 

In  the  first,  I  place  the  textile  fabrics,  —  manufactures  of  cot 
ton,  wool,  flax,  hemp,  jute,  and  silk.  From  these  we  received 
during  the  last  fiscal  year  $50,000,000,  which  is  more  than  one 
third  of  all  our  customs  revenue. 

It  is  said  that  a  tax  should  not  be  levied  upon  the  clothing  of 
the  people.  This  would  be  a  valid  objection  were  it  not  for  the 
fact  that  objects  of  the  highest  national  importance  are  secured 
by  its  imposition.  That  forty-five  millions  of  people  should  be 
able  to  clothe  themselves  without  helpless  dependence  upon 
other  nations,  is  a  matter  of  transcendent  importance  to  every 
citizen.  What  American  can  be  indifferent  to  the  fact,  that 
in  the  year  1875  the  State  of  Massachusetts  alone  produced 
992,000,000  yards  of  textile  fabrics,  and  in  doing  so  consumed 
seventy-five  million  dollars'  worth  of  the  products  of  field  and 
flock,  and  gave  employment  to  120,000  artisans?  There  is  a 
touch  of  pathos  in  the  apologetic  reply  of  Governor  Spotswood, 
an  early  Colonial  Governor  of  Virginia,  when  he  wrote  to  his 
British  superiors  :  "  The  people,  more  of  necessity  than  of  incli 
nation,  attempt  to  clothe  themselves  with  their  own  manufactures. 
It  is  certainly  necessary  to  divert  their  application  to  some 


560  THE    WOOD   TARIFF  BTLL. 

commodity  less  prejudicial  to  the  trade  of  Great  Britain." 1 
Thanks  to  our  independence,  such  apologies  are  no  longer 
needed.  Some  of  the  rates  on  textile  fabrics  are  exorbitant, 
and  ought  to  be  reduced ;  but  the  general  principle  which  per 
vades  the  group  is  wise  and  beneficent,  not  only  as  a  means  of 
raising  revenue,  but  as  a  measure  of  national  economy. 

In  the  second  group  I  place  the  metals,  including  glass  and 
chemicals.  Though  the  tariff  upon  this  group  has  been  severely 
denounced  in  this  debate,  the  rate  does  not  average  more  than 
thirty-six  per  cent  ad  valorem,  and  the  group  produced  about 
$14,000,000  of  revenue  last  year.  Besides  serving  as  a  source 
of  public  revenue,  what  intelligent  man  fails  to  see  that  the 
metals  are  the  basis  of  all  the  machinery,  tools,  and  implements 
of  every  industry?  More  than  any  other  in  the  world's  history, 
this  is  the  age  when  inventive  genius  is  bending  all  its  energies  to 
devise  means  to  increase  the  effectiveness  of  human  labor.  The 
mechanical  wonders  displayed  at  our  Centennial  Exposition  are 
a  sufficient  illustration.  The  people  that  cannot  make  their  own 
implements  of  industry  must  be  content  to  take  a  very  humble 
and  subordinate  place  in  the  family  of  nations.  The  people 
that  cannot,  at  any  time,  by  their  own  previous  training,  arm 
and  equip  themselves  for  war,  must  be  content  to  exist  by  the 
sufferance  of  others. 

I  do  not  say  that  no  rates  in  this  group  are  too  high.  Some 
of  them  can  safely  be  reduced.  But  I  do  say  that  these  in 
dustries  could  not  have  attained  their  present  success  without 
the  national  care ;  and  to  abandon  them  now  will  prevent  their 
continued  prosperity. 

In  the  third  group  I  place  wines,  spirits,  and  tobacco  in  its 
various  forms.  On  these  the  duties  range  from  eighty-five  to 
ninety-five  per  cent  ad  valorem  ;  and  from  them  we  collected 
last  year  $io,ooo,ooo  of  revenue.  The  wisdom  of  this  tax  will 
hardly  be  disputed  by  any  one. 

In  the  fourth  group  I  place  imported  provisions  which  come 
in  competition  with  the  products  of  our  own  fields  and  herds, 
including  breadstuffs,  salt,  rice,  sugar,  molasses,  and  spices.  On 
such  imports  we  collected  last  year  a  revenue  of  $42,000,000, 
$37,000,000  of  which  was  collected  on  sugar.  Of  the  duty  on 
the  principal  article  of  this  group,  I  shall  speak  further  on  in 
my  discussion. 

1  Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  III.  p.  107. 


THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL.  561 

On  the  fifth  group,  comprising  leather  and  manufactures  of 
leather,  we  receive  about  $3,000,000  of  revenue. 

On  the  imports  included  in  the  five  groups,  which  comprise 
the  great  manufacturing  industries  of  the  country,  we  collect 
$119,000,000,  —  more  than  ninety  per  cent  of  all  our  customs 
revenue.  I  ask  if  it  be  not  an  object  of  the  highest  national 
importance  to  keep  alive,  and  in  vigorous  health  and  growth, 
the  industries  included  in  these  groups?  What  sort  of  people 
should  we  be  if  we  did  not  keep  them  alive?  Suppose  we  were 
to  follow  the  advice  of  the  distinguished  gentleman  from  Vir 
ginia,  when  he  said :  — 

"  Why  should  we  make  pig-iron  when  with  Berkshire  pigs  raised  upon 
our  farms  we  can  buy  more  iron  pigs  from  England  than  we  can  get  by 
trying  to  make  them  ourselves  ?  We  can  get  more  iron  pigs  from  Eng 
land  for  Berkshire  pigs,  than  we  can  from  the  Pennsylvania  manufac 
turers.  Why,  then,  should  I  not  be  permitted  to  send  there  for  them? 
....  What  a  market  for  our  raw  material,  for  our  products,  if  we  only 
would  take  the  hand  which  Great  Britain  extends  to  us  for  free  trade 
between  us  !"  * 

For  a  single  season,  perhaps,  his  plan  might  be  profitable  to 
the  consumers  of  iron  ;  but  if  his  policy  were  adopted  as  a  per 
manent  one,  it  would  reduce  us  to  a  merely  agricultural  people, 
whose  chief  business  would  be  to  produce  the  simplest  raw 
materials  by  the  least  skill  and  culture,  and  let  the  men  of 
brains  of  other  countries  do  our  thinking  for  us,  and  provide 
for  us  all  products  requiring  the  cunning  hand  of  the  artisan, 
while  we  should  be  compelled  to  do  the  drudgery  for  ourselves 
and  for  them. 

The  gentleman  from  Virginia  is  too  good  a  logician  not  to 
see  that  the  theory  he  advocates  can  only  be  realized  in  a  state 
of  universal  peace  and  brotherhood  among  the  nations ;  and, 
in  developing  his  plan,  he  says :  — 

"  Commerce,  Mr.  Chairman,  links  all  mankind  in  one  common  broth 
erhood  of  mutual  dependence  and  interests,  and  thus  creates  that  unity 
of  our  race  which  makes  the  resources  of  all  the  property  of  each  and 
every  member.  We  cannot  if  we  would,  and  should  not  if  we  could, 
remain  isolated  and  alone.  Men,  under  the  benign  influence  of  Chris 
tianity,  yearn  for  intercourse,  for  the  interchange  of  thought  and  the 
products  of  thought  as  a  means  of  a  common  progress  toward  a  nobler 
civilization 

1  Appendix  to  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session,  45th  Congress,  p.  141. 
VOL.  ii.  36 


562  -THE    WOOD  TARIFF  BILL. 

"  Mr.  Chairman,  I  cannot  believe  this  is  according  to  the  Divine  plan. 
Christianity  bids  us  seek  in  communion  with  our  brethren  of  every  race 
and  clime  the  blessings  they  can  afford  us,  and  to  bestow  in  return  upon 
them  those  with  which  our  new  continent  is  destined  to  fill  the  world."  l 

This,  I  admit,  is  a  grand  conception,  a  beautiful  vision  of  the 
time  when  all  the  nations  shall  dwell  together  in  unity, — when 
all  will  be,  as  it  were,  one  nation,  each  furnishing  to  the  others 
what  they  cannot  profitably  produce,  and  all  working  harmoni 
ously  together  in  the  millennium  of  peace.  If  all  the  kingdoms 
of  the  world  should  become  the  kingdom  of  the  Prince  of  Peace, 
then  I  admit  that  universal  free  trade  ought  to  prevail.  But  that 
blessed  era  is  yet  too  remote  to  be  made  the  basis  of  the  prac 
tical  legislation  of  to-day.  We  are  not  yet  members  of  "the 
parliament  of  man,  the  federation  of  the  world."  For  the  pres 
ent,  the  world  is  divided  into  separate  nationalities;  and  that 
other  Divine  command  still  applies  to  our  situation:  "If  any 
provide  not  for  his  own,  and  specially  for  those  of  his  own 
house,  he  hath  denied  the  faith,  and  is  worse  than  an  infidel  " ; 
and,  until  that  better  era  arrives,  patriotism  must  supply  the 
place  of  universal  brotherhood.  For  the  present  GortschakofT 
can  do  most  good  to  the  world  by  taking  care  of  Russia.  The 
great  Bismarck  can  accomplish  most  for  his  era  by  being,  as 
he  is,  German  to  the  core,  and  promoting  the  welfare  of  the 
German  Empire.  Let  Beaconsfield  take  care  of  England,  and 
McMahon  of  France,  and  let  Americans  devote  themselves  to 
the  welfare  of  America.  When  each  does  his  best  for  his  own 
nation  to  promo.te  prosperity,  justice,  and  peace,  all  will  have 
done  more  for  the  world  than  if  all  had  attempted  to  be  cosmo 
politans  rather  than  patriots. 

But  I  wish  to  say,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  I  have  no  sympathy 
with  those  who  approach  this  question  only  from  the  stand 
point  of  their  own  local,  selfish  interest.  When  a  man  comes  to 
me  and  says,  "  Put  a  prohibitory  duty  on  the  foreign  article 
which  competes  with  my  product,  that  I  may  get  rich  more  rap 
idly,"  he  does  not  excite  my  sympathy,  but  repels  me ;  and 
when  another  says,  "  Give  no  protection  to  the  manufacturing 
industries,  for  I  am  not  a  manufacturer  and  do  not  care  to  have 
them  sustained,"  I  say  that  he  too  is  equally  mercenary  and 
unpatriotic.  If  we  were  to  legislate  in  that  spirit,  I  might  turn 
to  the  gentleman  from  Chicago  and  say,  "  Do  not  ask  me  to  vote 
1  Appendix  to  Congressional  Globe,  2d  Session,  45th  Congress,  p.  141. 


THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL.  563 

for  an  appropriation  to  build  a  court-house  or  a  post-office  in 
your  city ;  I  never  expect  to  get  any  letters  from  that  office,  and 
the  people  of  my  district  never  expect  to  be  in  your  courts." 
If  we  were  to  act  in  this  spirit  of  narrow  isolation,  we  should  be 
unfit  for  the  national  positions  we  occupy. 

Too  much  of  our  tariff  discussion  has  been  warped  by  narrow 
and  sectional  considerations.  But  when  we  base  our  action  upon 
the  conceded  national  importance  of  our  great  industries,  when 
we  recognize  the  fact  that  artisans  and  their  products  are  essen 
tial  to  the  well-being  of  our  country,  it  follows  that  there  is  no 
dweller  in  the  humblest  cottage  on  our  remotest  frontier  who 
has  not  a  deep  personal  interest  in  the  legislation  that  shall  pro 
mote  these  great  national  industries.  Those  arts  that  enable 
our  nation  to  rise  in  the  scale  of  civilization  bring  their  bless 
ings  to  all,  and  patriotic  citizens  will  cheerfully  bear  a  fair  share 
of  the  burden  necessary  to  make  their  country  great  and  self- 
sustaining.  I  will  defend  a  tariff  that  is  national  in  its  aims,  that 
protects  and  sustains  those  interests  without  which  the  nation 
cannot  become  such. 

So  important,  in  my  view,  is  the  ability  of  the  nation  to  manu 
facture  all  those  articles  necessary  to  arm,  equip,  and  clothe  our 
people,  that  if  it  could  not  be  secured  in  any  other  way  I  would 
vote  to  pay  money  out  of  the  Federal  Treasury  to  maintain 
government  iron  and  steel,  woollen  and  cotton  mills,  at  whatever 
cost.  Were  we  to  neglect  these  great  interests  and  depend  upon 
other  nations,  in  what  a  condition  of  helplessness  should  we  find 
ourselves  when  we  were  again  involved  in  war  with  the  very  na 
tions  on  whom  we  were  depending  to  furnish  us  these  supplies ! 
The  system  adopted  by  our  fathers  is  wiser,  for  it  so  encourages 
the  great  national  industries  as  to  make  it  possible  at  all  times 
for  our  people  to  equip  themselves  for  war,  and  at  the  same 
time  so  increases  their  intelligence  and  skill  as  to  make  them 
better  fitted  for  all  the  duties  of  citizenship  both  in  war  and  in 
peace.  We  provide  for  the  common  defence  by  a  system  which 
promotes  the  general  welfare. 

I  have  tried  thus  summarily  to  state  the  grounds  on  which  a 
tariff  which  produces  the  necessary  revenue,  and  at  the  same 
time  promotes  American  manufactures,  can  be  sustained  by 
large-minded  men  for  national  reasons.  How  high  the  rates 
of  such  a  tariff  ought  to  be,  is  a  question  on  which  opinions 
may  fairly  differ. 


564  THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL. 

Fortunately  or  unfortunately,  on  this  question  I  have  long 
occupied  a  position  between  two  extremes  of  opinion.  I  have 
long  believed,  and  I  still  believe,  that  the  worst  evil  which  has 
afflicted  the  interests  of  American  artisans  and  manufacturers 
has  been  the  tendency  to  extremes  in  our  tariff  legislation. 
Our  history  for  the  last  fifty  years  has  been  a  repetition  of  the 
same  mistake.  One  party  comes  into  power,  and,  believing  that 
a  protective  tariff  is  a  good  thing,  establishes  a  fair  rate  of  duty. 
Not  content  with  that,  they  say,  "  This  works  well,  let  us  have 
more  of  it."  And  they  raise  the  rates  still  higher,  and  perhaps 
go  beyond  the  limits  of  national  interest.  Every  additional 
step  in  that  direction  increases  the  opposition,  and  threatens 
the  stability  of  the  whole  system.  When  the  policy  of  in 
crease  is  pushed  beyond  a  certain  point,  the  popular  reaction 
sets  in ;  the  opposite  party  gets  into  power,  and  cuts  down 
the  high  rates.  Not  content  with  reducing  the  rates  that  are 
unreasonable,  they  attack  and  destroy  the  whole  protective 
system.  Then  follows  a  deficit  in  the  Treasury,  the  destruc 
tion  of  manufacturing  interests,  until  the  reaction  again  sets 
in,  the  free-traders  are  overthrown,  and  a  protective  system 
is  again  established.  In  not  less  than  four  distinct  periods 
during  the  last  fifty  years  has  this  sort  of  revolution  in  our 
industrial  system  taken  place.  Our  great  national  industries 
have  thus  been  tossed  up  and  down  between  two  extremes  of 
opinion. 

Throughout  my  term  of  service  in  this  House  I  have  resisted 
the  effort  to  increase  the  rates  of  duty  whenever  I  thought  an 
increase  would  be  dangerous  to  the  stability  of  our  manufactur 
ing  interests ;  and  by  doing  so  I  have  sometimes  been  thought 
unfriendly  to  the  policy  of  protecting  American  industry.  When 
the  necessity  of  the  revenues,  and  the  safety  of  our  manufactures 
warranted,  I  have  favored  a  reduction  of  rates ;  and  these  re 
ductions  have  aided  to  preserve  the  stability  of  the  system.  In 
one  year,  soon  after  the  close  of  the  war,  we  raised  $212,000,000 
of  revenue  from  customs.  In  1870  we  reduced  the  customs 
duties  by  the  sum  of  $29,500,000.  In  1872  they  were  again 
reduced  by  the  sum  of  $44,500,000.  Those  reductions  were 
in  the  main  wise  and  judicious ;  and  although  I  did  not  vote 
for  them  all,  yet  they  have  put  the  fair-minded  men  of  this 
country  in  a  position  where  they  can  justly  resist  any  consid 
erable  reduction  below  the  present  rates. 


THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL.  565 

My  view  of  the  danger  of  extreme  positions  on  the  questions 
of  tariff  rates  may  be  illustrated  by  a  remark  made  by  Horace 
Greeley  in  the  last  conversation  I  ever  had  with  that  distin 
guished  man.  Said  he,  "  My  criticism  of  you  is,  that  you  are  not 
sufficiently  high  protective  in  your  views."  I  replied,  "  What 
would  you  advise?"  He  said,  "If  I  had  my  way,  if  I  were 
king  of  this  country,  I  would  put  a  duty  of  $100  a  ton  on 
pig-iron,  and  a  proportionate  duty  on  everything  else  that  can 
be  produced  in  America.  The  result  would  be  that  our  people 
would  be  obliged  to  supply  their  own  wants,  manufactures 
would  spring  up,  competition  would  finally  reduce  prices,  and 
we  should  live  wholly  within  ourselves."  I  replied,  that  the 
fatal  objection  to  his  theory  was  that  no  man  is  king  of  this 
country,  with  power  to  make  his  policy  permanent.  But  as  all 
our  policies  depend  upon  popular  support,  the  extreme  meas 
ure  proposed  Would  beget  an  opposite  extreme,  and  our  indus 
tries  would  suffer  from  violent  reactions.  For  this  reason,  I 
believe  that  we  ought  to  seek  that  point  of  stable  equilibrium 
somewhere  between  a  prohibitory  tariff,  on  the  one  hand,  and  a 
tariff  that  gives  no  protection,  on  the  other.  What  is  that  point 
of  stable  equilibrium?  In  my  judgment  it  is  this:  a  rate  so 
high  that  foreign  producers  cannot  flood  our  markets  and  break 
down  our  home  manufacturers,  but  not  so  high  as  to  keep  them 
altogether  out,  enabling  our  manufacturers  to  combine  and  raise 
the  prices,  nor  so  high  as  to  stimulate  an  unnatural  and  un 
healthy  growth  of  manufactures. 

In  other  words,  I  would  have  the  duty  so  adjusted  that  every 
great  American  industry  can  live  and  make  fair  profits ;  and 
yet  so  low  that,  if  our  manufacturers  attempted  to  put  up 
prices  unreasonably,  the  competition  from  abroad  would  come 
in  and  bring  down  prices  to  a  fair  rate.  Such  a  tariff,  I  believe, 
will  be  supported  by  the  great  majority  of  Americans.  We  are 
not  far  from  having  such  a  tariff  in  our  present  law.  In  some 
respects,  it  departs  from  that  standard.  Wherever  it  does, 
we  should  amend  it,  and  by  so  doing  we  shall  secure  stability 
and  prosperity. 

This  brings  me  to  the  consideration  of  the  pending  bill.  It 
was  my  hope,  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  session,  that  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  would  enter  upon  a  revision  of 
the  tariff  in  the  spirit  I  have  indicated.  The  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  suggested,  in  his  annual  report,  that  a  considerable 


566  THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL. 

number  of  articles  which  produce  but  a  small  amount  of  reve 
nue,  and  are  not  essential  to  the  prosperity  of  our  manufactures, 
could  be  placed  upon  the  free  list,  thus  simplifying  the  law  and 
making  it  more  consistent  in  its  details.  I  was  ready  to  assist 
in  such  a  work  of  revision ;  but  the  committee  had  not  gone 
far  before  it  was  evident  that  they  intended  to  attack  the  whole 
system,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  destroy  it.  The  results  of  their 
long  and  arduous  labors  are  embodied  in  the  pending  bill. 

Some  of  the  existing  rates  can  be  slightly  reduced  with 
out  serious  harm ;  but  many  of  the  reductions  proposed  in 
this  bill  will  be  fatal.  It  is  related  that  a  surgeon,  who  was 
probing  an  emperor's  wound  to  find  the  ball,  said,  "  Can  your 
Majesty  allow  me  to  go  deeper?  "  His  Majesty  replied,  "  Probe 
a  little  deeper  and  you  will  find  the  emperor."  It  is  that  little 
deeper  probing  by  this  bill  that  will  touch  the  vital  interests 
of  this  country  and  destroy  them.  Some  of  its  provisions 
are  wise,  and  ought  to  be  adopted.  One  particularly,  which 
establishes  a  new  test  of  the  value  of  sugar,  should,  if  possible, 
become  a  law  before  this  session  ends.  But,  in  my  judgment, 
the  bill  as  a  whole  is  a  most  unwise  and  dangerous  measure,  — 
dangerous  to  the  great  national  industries  of  this  country,  — 
so  dangerous  that,  if  we  should  pass  it,  it  would  greatly  in 
crease  the  prevailing  distress,  and  would  make  the  condition 
of  our  artisans  deplorable  to  the  last  degree.  The  chief  charge 
I  make  against  it  is  that  it  seeks  to  cripple  the  protective  fea 
tures  of  the  law.  It  increases  rates  where  an  increase  is  not 
necessary,  and  it  cuts  them  down  where  cutting  will  kill. 

One  of  the  wisest  provisions  of  our  present  law  is  the  estab 
lishment  of  a  definite  free  list.  From  year  to  year,  when  it 
has  been  found  that  any  article  could  safely  be  liberated  from 
duty,  it  has  been  put  upon  that  list.  A  large  number  of  raw 
materials  have  thus  been  made  free  of  duty.  This  has  lightened 
the  burdens  of  taxation,  and  at  the  same  time  aided  the  indus 
tries  of  the  country.  To  show  the  progress  that  has  been  made 
in  this  direction,  it  should  be  remembered  that  in  1867  the 
value  of  all  articles  imported  free  of  duty  was  but  $39,000,000, 
while  in  1877  the  free  imports  amounted  to  $181,000,000.  As 
I  have  already  said,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  recommends 
a  still  further  increase  of  the  free  list.  But  this  bill  abolishes 
the  free  list  altogether,  and  imposes  duties  upon  a  large  number 
of  articles  now  free.  And  this  is  done  in  order  to  make  still 


THE    WOOD   TARIFF  BILL.  567 

greater  reductions  upon  articles  that  must  be  protected  if  their 
manufacture  is  maintained  in  this  country. 

Let  me  notice  a  few  of  the  great  industries  at  which  this  bill 
strikes. 

In  the  group  of  textile  fabrics  of  which  I  have  spoken,  reduc 
tions  upon  cotton  manufactures  are  made  which  will  stop  three 
quarters  of  the  cotton  mills  of  the  country  and  hopelessly  pros 
trate  the  business.  Still  greater  violence  is  done  to  the  wool 
and  woollen  interests.  The  attempt  has  been  made  to  show 
that  the  business  of  wool-growing  has  declined  in  consequence 
of  our  present  law,  and  the  fact  has  been  pointed  out  that  the 
number  of  sheep  has  been  steadily  falling  off  in  the  Eastern 
States.  The  truth  is,  that  sheep  culture  in  the  United  States 
was  never  in  so  healthy  a  condition  as  it  is  to-day.  In  1860  our 
total  wool  product  was  sixty  millions  of  pounds.  In  1877  we 
produced  two  hundred  and  eight  millions  of  pounds.  It  is  true 
that  there  are  not  now  so  large  a  number  of  sheep  in  the  Eastern 
States  as  there  were  a  few  years  since ;  but  the  centre  of  that 
industry  has  been  shifted.  Of  the  thirty-five  and  a  half  millions 
of  sheep  now  in  the  United  States,  fourteen  and  a  half  millions 
are  in  Texas  and  the  States  and  Territories  west  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  California  alone  has  six  and  a  half  millions.  Not 
the  least  important  feature  of  this  interest  is  the  facility  it  offers 
for  cheap  animal  food.  A  great  French  statesman  has  said, 
"  It  is  more  important  to  provide  food  than  clothing,"  and  the 
growth  of  sheep  accomplishes  both  objects.  Ninety-five  per 
cent  of  all  the  woollen  fabrics  manufactured  in  this  country  are 
now  made  of  native  wool. 

The  tariff  on  wool  and  woollens  was  adopted  in  1867,  after  a 
most  careful  and  thorough  examination  of  both  the  producing 
and  the  manufacturing  interests.  It  was  the  result  of  an  adjust 
ment  between  the  farmers  and  manufacturers,  and  has  been 
advantageous  to  both.  A  small  reduction  of  the  rates  could  be 
made  without  injury.  Both  of  these  interests  consented  to  a 
reduction,  and  submitted  their  plan  to  the  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means.  But  instead  of  adopting  it,  the  committee  have 
struck  those  interests  down,  and  put  a  dead  level  ad  valorem 
duty  upon  all  wools.  The  chairman  tells  us  that  the  committee 
sought  to  do  away  with  the  ad  valorem  system,  because  it 
gives  rise  to  fraudulent  invoices  and  undervaluation.  Yet,  on 
an  interest  that  yields  twenty  millions  of  revenue,  he  proposes 


568  THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL. 

to  strike  down  the  specific  duties,  and  put  it  upon  one  uniform 
level  of  ad  valorem  duty  without  regard  to  quality. 

I  would  not  introduce  sectional  topics  into  this  discussion,  but 
I  must  notice  one  curious  feature  of  this  bill.  In  the  great 
group  of  provisions,  on  which  nearly  fifty  millions  of  revenue  are 
paid  into  the  Treasury,  I  find  that  thirty-seven  millions  of  the 
amount  comes  from  imported  sugar.  No  one  would  defend  the 
levying  of  so  heavy  a  tax  upon  a  necessary  article  of  food,  were 
it  not  that  a  great  agricultural  interest  is  thereby  protected. 
That  interest  is  mainly  confined  to  the  State  of  Louisiana.  I 
am  glad  that  the  government  has  given  its  aid  to  the  State,  for 
not  a  pound  of  sugar  could  be  manufactured  there  if  the  tariff 
law  did  not  protect  it.  As  the  law  now  stands,  the  average  ad 
valorem  duty  on  sugar  is  62^  per  cent.  But  what  has  this  bill 
done  ?  The  complaint  is  made  by  its  advocates,  that  the  rates 
are  now  too  high.  The  rates  on  all  dutiable  articles  average 
about  42  per  cent;  yet  on  sugar  the  average  is  62^  per  cent. 
This  bill  puts  up  the  average  duty  on  sugar  to  about  70  per 
cent.  This  one  interest,  which  is  already  protected  by  a  duty 
much  higher  than  the  average,  is  here  granted  a  still  higher 
rate,  while  other  interests,  now  far  below  the  average  rate,  are 
put  still  lower.  Metals,  that  now  average  but  36  per  cent  ad 
valorem,  —  far  less  than  the  general  average,  —  but  little  more 
than  half  of  the  rate  on  sugar,  —  are  cut  down  still  more,  while 
the  protection  of  the  sugar  interest  is  made  still  higher. 

If  the  planters  of  Louisiana  were  to  get  the  benefit,  there 
would  be  some  excuse  for  the  increase;  but  what  is  the  fact? 
1,415,000,000  pounds  of  sugar  were  imported  into  this  country 
last  year,  but  not  one  pound  of  refined  sugar;  every  pound  was 
imported  in  the  crude  form,  going  into  the  hands  of  about 
twenty-five  gentlemen,  mostly  in  the  city  of  New  York,  who 
refine  every  pound  of  this  enormous  quantity  of  imported  sugar 
that  is  refined.  This  bill  increases  the  rates  on  the  high  grades 
of  sugar  far  more  than  on  the  low  grades,  and  makes  the  impor 
tation  of  any  finished  sugar  impossible.  It  strengthens  and 
makes  absolute  the  monopoly  already  given  to  the  refin 
ing  interest;  yet  we  are  told  that  this  is  a  revenue-reform 
tariff! 

Before  closing,  I  wish  to  notice  one  thing  that  I  believe  has 
not  been  mentioned  in  this  debate.  A  few  years  ago  we  had  a 
considerable  premium  on  gold,  and  as  our  tariff  duties  were  paid 


THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL.  569 

in  coin  there  was  thus  created  an  increase  in  the  tariff  rates. 
In  1875,  for  instance,  the  average  currency  value  of  coin  was 
one  hundred  and  fourteen  cents;  in  1876,  one  hundred  and 
eleven  cents;  in  1877,  one  hundred  and  four  cents.  Now, 
thanks  to  the  resumption  law  and  the  rate  of  our  exchanges  and 
credit,  the  premium  on  gold  is  almost  down  to  zero.  But  this 
fall  in  the  premium  has  operated  as  a  steady  reduction  of  the 
tariff  rates,  because  the  duties  are  paid  in  gold,  while  the  goods 
are  sold  for  currency.  Now,  when  gentlemen  say  that  the  rates 
were  high  a  few  years  ago,  it  should  be  remembered  that  they 
have  been  falling  year  by  year,  as  the  price  of  gold  has  been 
coming  down.  When,  therefore,  gentlemen  criticise  the  rates 
as  fixed  in  the  law  of  1872,  they  should  remember  that  the  fall 
in  the  premium  on  gold  has  wrought  a  virtual  reduction  of  four 
teen  per  cent  in  the  tariff  rates. 

Mr.  Chairman,  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  have  done 
a  large  amount  of  work  on  this  bill.  The  chairman  has  labored 
in  season  and  out  of  season,  and  he  deserves  credit  for  the 
energy  and  earnestness  with  which  he  has  addressed  himself  to 
this  task.  But  the  views  which  have  found  expression  in  his 
bill  must  be  criticised  without  regard  to  personal  considerations. 
A  bill  so  radical  in  its  character,  so  dangerous  to  our  business 
prosperity,  would  work  infinite  mischief  at  this  time,  when  the 
country  is  just  recovering  itself  from  a  long  period  of  depres 
sion,  and  is  getting  again  upon  solid  ground,  just  coming  up 
out  of  the  wild  sea  of  panic  and  distress  which  has  tossed  us 
so  long. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  twenty-two  per  cent  of  all  the 
laboring  people  of  this  country  are  artisans  engaged  in  manu 
factures.  Their  culture  has  been  fostered  by  our  tariff  laws. 
It  is  their  pursuits  and  the  skill  which  they  have  developed  that 
produced  the  glory  of  our  Centennial  Exposition.  To  them  the 
country  owes  the  splendor  of  the  position  it  holds  before  the 
world  more  than  to  any  other  equal  number  of  our  citizens.  If 
this  bill  becomes  a  law,  it  strikes  down  their  occupations,  and 
throws  into  the  keenest  distress  the  brightest  and  best  elements 
of  our  population.  I  implore  this  House  not  to  permit  us  to  be 
thrown  into  greater  confusion,  either  by  letting  this  bill  become 
a  law,  or  by  letting  it  hang  over  the  country  as  a  menace.  And 
in  all  kindness  to  the  chairman  of  the  committee  and  the  gentle 
men  who  think  with  him,  I  hope  we  shall  sit  here  to-night  until 


570  THE    WOOD    TARIFF  BILL. 

the  second  reading  of  the  bill  is  commenced.  When  the  first 
paragraph  has  been  read,  I  shall  propose  to  strike  out  the  enact 
ing  clause.  If  the  committee  will  do  that,  we  can  kill  the  bill 
to-day.  It  is  not  simply  a  stalking-horse  upon  which  gentlemen 
can  leap  to  show  their  horsemanship  in  debate ;  it  is  not  an 
innocent  lay-figure  upon  which  gentlemen  may  spread  the 
gaudy  wares  of  their  rhetoric  without  harm ;  but  it  is  a  great, 
dangerous  monster,  a  very  Polyphemus,  which  stalks  through 
the  land. 

"  Monstrum  horrendum,  inf orme,  ingens,  cui  lumen  ademptum." 

Let  us  cut  off  its  head,  and  end  the  agony ! 


THE    HALIFAX   AWARD. 

REMARKS  MADE  IN   THE  HOUSE  OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 
JUNE  19,  1878. 


THE  Treaty  of  Washington,  July  4,  1871,  contained  provisions  for  sub 
mitting  certain  disputes  concerning  the  fisheries  to  a  board  of  three 
commissioners,  one  to  be  named  by  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
one  by  her  Britannic  Majesty,  and  one  by  the  two  conjointly,  or,  in 
case  they  could  not  agree,  by  the  Spanish  Minister  at  Washington. 
This  board  found  by  a  vote  of  two  to  one  that  the  government  of  the 
United  States  should  pay  to  the  government  of  Great  Britain  $5,500,000 
in  gold,  in  return  for  certain  privileges  accorded  to  the  citizens  of  the 
United  States  under  Article  XVIII.  of  said  treaty.  This  is  known  as  the 
"  Halifax  Award,"  made  at  Halifax,  November  23,  1877.  The  proposi 
tion  to  pay  the  award  came  before  the  House  of  Representatives  in  the 
form  of  an  amendment  to  the  Sundry  Civil  Appropriation  Bill.  Pay 
ment  was  resisted  on  various  grounds.  Pending  this  proposition,  Mr. 
Garfield  made  the  following  remarks.  The  proposition  finally  prevailed 
in  both  houses,  and  payment  was  duly  made. 


MR.  SPEAKER,  —  I  hope  the  members  of  this  House  will 
put  out  of  their  minds  for  a  moment  the  question  of  tech 
nicality  and  of  money,  and  think  of  this  tremendous  fact,  that 
here,  to-night,  within  the  next  twenty  minutes,  by  our  votes,  we 
are  to  close  the  diplomacy  of  the  late  war.  Our  war  covered 
three  great  fields,  —  battles,  legislation,  diplomacy.  It  is  not 
often  that  any  company  of  men  is  permitted  by  a  single  act  to 
close  a  seventeen-year  series  of  great  historical  events.  The 
events  we  shall  conclude  to-night  almost  equal  in  importance 
the  battles  of  our  war,  and  fully  equal  the  importance  of  our 
war  legislation.  This  act  concludes  the  history  of  our  war 
diplomacy. 


572  THE  HALIFAX  AWARD. 

No  one  who  has  carefully  studied  that  history  can  fail  to 
admire  the  remarkable  success  of  our  republic  in  its  war  diplo 
macy.  Remember  that  in  the  outset  the  monarchical  nations 
of  Europe  looked  upon  our  great  conflict  with  satisfaction,  and 
said :  "  The  republic  goes  down  in  blood  and  darkness.  It  is 
as  we  told  you,  —  the  government  of  the  people,  by  the  peo 
ple,  and  for  the  people,  is  a  failure,  and  dies  by  its  own  hand." 
England  folded  her  arms,  and  said  proudly :  "  We  will  not  lend 
you  a  dollar  to  aid  you  in  a  war  upon  a  sister  republic."  In  the 
midst  of  our  agony,  France  seized  Mexico,  our  sister  republic, 
and  said,  "  We  will  plant  imperialism  upon  the  Western  conti 
nent."  We  were  girdled  by  the  unfriendly  powers  of  Europe. 
But  the  republic  entered  the  field  of  diplomacy,  —  and  his 
tory  has  recorded  its  triumphs.  Napoleon  was  outgeneralled ; 
and  the  coalition  that  was  to  plant  an  Austrian  monarchy  in 
Mexico  was  broken.  When  I  was  in  France,  soon  after  our 
war,  I  was  frequently  told  that,  as  Frenchmen  looked  across  the 
ocean,  the  foremost  American  in  their  estimation,  after  Lincoln, 
was  William  H.  Seward.  And  why?  I  asked.  Because  he 
shattered  a  great  coalition,  and  defeated  Napoleon's  scheme  of 
conquest  in  Mexico.  Maximilian  was  abandoned  to  his  tragic 
fate,  and  the  shadow  of  monarchy  vanished  as  he  fell. 

Still  more  serious  were  our  difficulties  with  England,  com 
mencing  with  that  exciting  affair  of  the  Trent,  which  for  a  time 
threatened  us  with  a  foreign  war,  added  to  our  home  war.  With 
a  skill  and  foresight  of  the  highest  order,  this  and  similar  dan 
gers  were  tided  over,  and  at  last  the  complicated  difficulties  in 
which  we  were  involved  with  England  were  submitted  to  arbi 
tration.  All  our  troubles,  —  those  that  grew  out  of  the  war  and 
those  which  grew  out  of  the  Vancouver  Island  controversy,  the 
fisheries  question,  and  the  Alabama  claims,  —  all  were  submit 
ted  to  peaceable  arbitration.  This  was  itself  a  triumph  that 
marked  an  era  of  civilization.  The  great  congress  now  in  ses 
sion  at  Berlin  is  in  the  line  of  the  great  Geneva  precedent. 

In  one  of  our  controversies  his  Majesty  the  venerable  Em 
peror  of  Germany  was  made  the  arbitrator,  and  decided  the 
Vancouver  case  in  our  favor.  Then  came  the  great  tribunal  at 
Geneva,  which  was  managed  on  our  side  with  a  skill  and  wis 
dom  of  which  all  Americans  should  be  proud.  We  won  the 
case,  and  England  paid  us  $15,500,000  promptly  and  without 
a  word  of  protest.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  national  claims 


THE  HALIFAX  AWARD.  573 

were  rejected,  and  only  claims  of  private  citizens  were  allowed, 
we  received  far  more  than  was  really  due  to  our  citizens.  It 
is  a  fair  question  whether  as  a  matter  of  honor  we  ought  not  to 
pay  back  to  England  the  surplus. 

We  have  carried  every  point  in  this  war  of  diplomacy  except 
the  last,  and  now  as  the  last  act  in  the  long  -series  we  have  the 
award  of  the  Fishery  Commission.  As  a  matter  of  personal 
opinion,  I  think,  with  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,1  that 
we  got  the  worst  of  it;  that  the  award  made  against  us  is 
exorbitant  and  unreasonable.  I  do  not  think  that  any  just 
estimate  could  have  shown  that  five  and  a  half  millions  of 
dollars  was  fairly  due.  But  what  shall  I  say,  what  shall  any 
American  say,  when  we  remember  that  in  our  career  of  suc 
cessful  diplomacy  during  these  seventeen  years  we  have  suffered 
only  this  one  comparatively  small  reverse?  Shall  we  demand 
payment  when  the  award  is  in  our  favor,  and  refuse  it  when  the 
award  is  against  us?  Even  gamblers  pay  their  gambling  debts, 
I  am  told.  Fair  men  everywhere  pay  when  they  agree  to  pay. 
Much  more  should  a  great  nation  pay.  It  would  be  infinitely 
disgraceful  for  the  United  States  to  higgle  about  the  amount,  or 
to  stand  a  single  moment  on  any  mere  technicality. 

The  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  has  stated  the  whole 
strength  of  the  case  against  the  validity  of  the  award,  both  as 
to  the  excessive  amount  and  the  fact  that  the  award  is  not  the 
unanimous  act  of  the  Commission.  I  am  glad  he  has  made 
these  points.  He  has  been  furnishing  our  Executive  with  argu 
ments  to  be  used  as  contemplated  in  the  provisions  of  this  very 
amendment  before  us.  What  are  those  provisions?  We  are 
not  now  appropriating  money  to  pay  the  award.  We  are 
appropriating  money,  in  the  language  of  the  amendment,  to  be 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  President.  For  what  purpose? 
In  order  that,  "  if,  after  correspondence  with  the  British  gov 
ernment  on  the  subject  of  the  conformity  of  the  award  to  the 
requirements  of  the  treaty  and  to  the  terms  of  the  question 
thereby  submitted  to  the  Commission,  the  President  shall  deem 
it  his  duty  to  make  the  payment  without  further  communication 
with  Congress,"  he  may  make  the  payment.  We  place  at  the 
President's  disposal  a  sufficient  amount  of  money,  and  empower 
him  to  pay  the  award,  if,  after  a  full  examination  of  the  case 
and  an  interchange  of  opinion  with  the  equal  sovereign  with 

1  Mr.  Butler. 


574  THE  HALIFAX  AWARD. 

whom  we  are  treating,  he  finds  it  to  be  due.  We  give  him  the 
means  to  close  and  crown  our  war  diplomacy,  and  we  have 
no  doubt  that  he  will  do  whatever  the  honor  of  the  nation 
demands. 

That  is  what  we  propose.  I  should  be  ashamed  of  my  asso 
ciates  in  this  House  if  they  should  refuse  to  put  this  money  in 
the  hands  of  the  Executive.  I  am  sure  this  republic  will  not 
higgle  when  she  gets  the  worst  in  one  part  of  the  mighty  trans 
action  in  which  she  got  the  best  in  every  other  part.  Let  us 
close  the  war,  so  far  as  diplomacy  is  concerned,  by  the  vote  we 
shall  now  give. 


THE    PRESS. 


ADDRESS    DELIVERED    BEFORE    THE    OHIO    EDITORIAL 
ASSOCIATION,   CLEVELAND,  OHIO, 

JULY   II,    1878. 


MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  GENTLEMEN,  —  I  count  it  a  special 
honor  to  have  been  invited  to  address  this  association 
of  editors.  But  I  have  been  not  a  little  puzzled  to  know  what 
is  expected  of  me  on  this  occasion,  and  am  still  more  at  a  loss 
to  determine  what  can  be  fitly  said  by  a  layman,  who  is  wholly 
ignorant  of  the  art  and  mystery  of  your  profession.  In  re 
solving  my  doubts,  I  have  taken  a  hint  from  an  incident  of  our 
late  war. 

In  one  of  the  battles  of  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland,  in 
Middle  Tennessee,  one  of  our  brigades  was  armed  with  a  new 
and  very  efficient  weapon,  —  the  Spencer  rifle,  a  seven-shooter. 
At  the  close  of  the  engagement  the  troops  expressed  their  great 
satisfaction  with  the  new  arm.  Their  commander  said :  "I  think 
it  is  the  best  gun  in  the  world ;  but,  after  all,  I  would  like  to 
know  what  those  fellows  think  of  it  who  stood  in  front  of  us, 
and  I  '11  go  and  ask  the  prisoners."  For  the  purposes  of  this 
address,  I  shall  assume  that  you  have  invited  me  to  speak  of 
journalism,  as  it  appears  to  those  who  stand  in  front  of  your 
guns. 

The  printing-press  is,  without  doubt,  the  most  powerful 
weapon  with  which  man  has  ever  armed  himself  for  the  fight 
against  ignorance  and  oppression.  But  it  was  not  free-born. 
It  was  invented  at  a  period  when  all  the  functions  of  govern 
ment  were  most  widely  separated  from  the  people;  when  se 
crecy,  diplomacy,  and  intrigue  were  the  chief  elements  of 
statesmanship.  To  such  a  system  publicity  was  fatal,  and  from 
its  birth  Gutenberg's  great  invention  was  taken  charge  of  in 


5;6  THE  PRESS. 

all  countries  by  the  authorities.  It  was  assumed  from  the  first 
that  nothing  should  be  printed  without  permission  of  the  Church 
or  State.  The  censorship  of  the  press  was  not  regarded  by 
governments  as  an  interference  with  the  rights  of  individuals. 
It  was  an  act  of  gracious  beneficence  to  allow  any  man  to  print 
his  opinions.  In  France,  and  indeed  in  nearly  all  the  states  of 
the  Continent,  during  the  first  two  centuries  after  the  invention 
of  printing,  a  private  printing-press  would  have  been  as  unlawful 
and  anomalous  as  a  private  mint  would  be  now.  At  a  very 
early  date  the  censorship  of  the  press  became  a  part  of  the 
law  of  England  and  of  her  Colonies.  For  a  long  time  it  was 
controlled  by  the  Church;  but  after  the  conflict  of  Henry 
VIII.  with  the  Pope,  the  law  was  administered  by  the  civil 
authorities. 

The  English  newspaper  was  born  in  London  in  1622,  a  few 
months  after  the  Pilgrims  had  landed  at  Plymouth.  At  that 
date  there  was  no  place  on  the  earth  where  a  printed  book  or 
paper  could  be  lawfully  published  until  it  had  received  the 
imprimatur  of  the  Church  or  of  the  sovereign ;  and,  of  course, 
nothing  was  allowed  to  be  published  but  what  was  entirely 
agreeable  to  the  authorities.  In  the  long,  fierce  struggle  for 
freedom  of  opinion,  the  press,  like  the  Church,  counted  its  mar 
tyrs  by  thousands.  The  prison,  the  pillory,  the  rack,  the  gib 
bet,  all  find  their  places  in  the  bloody  chapter  that  records  the 
history  of  its  emancipation. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  race  have  become  so  accustomed  to  enjoy 
liberty  of  opinion,  that  they  have  almost  forgotten  what  it  cost 
to  achieve  it.  They  indorse  the  declaration  of  Erskine,  that 
"  Other  liberties  are  under  government;  but  the  liberty  of  opin 
ion  keeps  governments  themselves  under  subjection  to  their 
duties."  But  they  do  not  always  remember  that  "  this  has  pro 
duced  the  martyrdom  of  truth  in  every  age,  and  that  the  world 
has  only  been  purged  from  ignorance  with  the  blood  of  those 
that  have  enlightened  it."  During  many  centuries  mankind  did 
not  seem  to  believe  that  truth  was  more  powerful  than  false 
hood.  They  did  not  dare  to  let  her  enter  the  lists  in  equal 
combat.  Cromwell  had  a  glimpse  of  the  better  view  when  he 
ordered  the  release  of  Harrington's  "  Oceana,"  which  had  been 
seized  as  libellous.  He  said :  "  Let  him  take  his  book.  If  my 
government  is  made  to  stand,  it  has  nothing  to  fear  from  paper 
shot."  Milton  saw  it  in  its  full  glory,  when,  in  his  noble  but 


THE  PRESS.  577 

unsuccessful  defence  of  the  press,  he  said :  "  Though  all  the 
winds  of  doctrine  were  let  loose  to  play  upon  the  earth,  so 
Truth  be  in  the  field,  we  do  injuriously  by  licensing  and  pro 
hibiting  to  misdoubt  her  strength.  Let  her  and  Falsehood  grap 
ple  ;  who  ever  knew  Truth  put  to  the  worse  in  a  free  and  open 
encounter?  Her  confuting  is  the  best  and  surest  suppressing."  l 
The  Commonwealth  did  something  for  liberty  of  opinion,  but 
that  little  was  lost  at  the  Restoration. 

The  opinion  was  almost  universal,  that  to  publish  any  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  government  was  an  act  of  treason.  In  1641, 
Sir  Edward  Dering  was  expelled  from  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  imprisoned  in  the  Tower,  for  publishing  a  speech  which  he 
had  delivered  in  Parliament,  and  all  the  copies  were  seized  and 
burned  by  the  common  hangman.  Before  the  Revolution  of 
1688,  it  was  unlawful  to  publish  any  reflection  upon  the  gov 
ernment,  or  upon  the  character  of  any  one  employed  by  it. 

In  1729  the  Commons  resolved  that  "  It  is  an  indignity  and 
a  breach  of  privilege  of  the  House  of  Commons  for  any  person 
to  presume  to  give  in  written  or  printed  newspapers  any  ac 
count  or  minutes  of  the  debates  or  other  proceedings  of  this 
House,  or  any  committee  thereof."  In  1764,  Mores,  the  editor 
of  the  Evening  Post,  was  fined  ,£100  by  the  House  of  Lords 
for  mentioning  the  name  of  Lord  Hereford  in  his  paper.  In 
1771,  after  a  long  and  fierce  struggle,  which  brought  England 
almost  to  a  bloody  revolution,  custom  tolerated,  though  the  law 
did  not  authorize,  the  publication  of  the  debates  in  Parliament. 
But  criticism  of  the  government  was  still  forbidden.  As  late  as 
1792  Sampson  Perry,  the  editor  of  the  Argus,  was  tried  and 
convicted  of  libel  for  saying  in  his  paper  that  "  the  House  of 
Commons  were  not  the  real  representatives  of  the  people." 

We  are  accustomed  to  say  that  liberty  was  brought  to  Amer 
ica  on  board  the  Mayflower.  But  it  was  only  after  a  long 
struggle  that  the  germ  was  planted.  In  view  of  the  European 
examples,  it  is  remarkable  that  the  persecution  of  free  opinion 
in  New  England  was  not  fiercer,  and  of  longer  duration.  It  re 
quired  a  century  for  the  doctrines  of  the  illustrious  exile  of 
Rhode  Island  to  take  firm  root  in  our  soil.  It  was  two  hundred 
years  after  the  discovery  of  the  continent,  and  seventy  years 
after  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  that  the  first  newspaper  was 
published  in  America,  and  that  paper,  entitled  "  Publick  Occur- 

1  Milton's  Areopagitica,  Prose  Works,  V  1.  I.  p.  189  (Philadelphia,  1856).    - 
VOL.  ii.  37 


578  THE  PRESS. 

rences,"  published  in  Boston  in  1690,  lived  but  one  day.     It  was 
suppressed  by  the  Colonial  authorities. 

-  I  have  referred  to  Roger  Williams  as  the  founder  of  liberty  of 
opinion  in  America.  It  has  long  been  a  matter  of  surprise  to 
me  that  journalists  have  not  taken  more  notice  of  him  as  our 
earliest  apostle  of  the  freedom  of  the  press.  Until  his  time 
toleration  was  the  strongest  expression  that  liberty  had  found. 
But  Williams  denounced  toleration  as  a  baleful  word ;  for  it  im 
plied  the  right  of  a  government  to  refuse  to  tolerate  dissenting 
opinions.  Exiled  into  the  wilderness  of  Rhode  Island  by  the 
religious  zealots  of  Massachusetts,  in  1636  he  announced  the  doc 
trine  of  "soul  liberty," -  — the  right  to  utter  his  own  convictions, 
—  as  the  inalienable  right  of  every  freeman.  But  Williams  had 
lain  a  century  in  his  grave  before  his  great  thought  was  crys 
tallized  into  the  enduring  form  of  constitutional  law. 

But  little  attention  has  been  directed  to  a  feature  of  our  na 
tional  Constitution  which  seems  to  me  by  far  its  most  important 
provision.  Our  fathers  sought  so  to  distribute  the  functions  of 
government  that  absolute  power  should  be  lodged  nowhere. 
They  divided  all  authority  into  three  great  groups.  Certain 
definitely  prescribed  powers  were  delegated  to  the  national 
government,  certain  others  to  the  State  governments ;  but  the 
most  important,  the  most  sacred  rights,  were  strictly  forbidden 
to  be  exercised  either  by  the  national  government  or  by  the 
States.  They  were  reserved  to  the  people  themselves.  In  every 
government  that  then  existed,  religion  was  the  chief  object  of 
the  state.  Indeed,  the  Old  World  theory  was  that  the  state 
was  organized  for  the  defence  and  maintenance  of  religion.  But 
our  fathers  considered  the  rights  of  conscience,  the  freedom  of 
thought,  too  sacred  to  be  delegated ;  hence,  they  provided  that 
the  care  of  religion,  the  freedom  of  speech,  and  the  freedom  of 
the  press,  should  never  depend  upon  legislation,  but  should  be 
left  to  the  voluntary  action  of  the  people  themselves.  With  a 
sublime  faith  in  the  omnipotence  of  truth,  they  left  her  free 
handed,  to  fight  her  own  way  against  all  comers.  Under  the 
inspiration  of  this  perfect  liberty,  the  American  press  has  been 
working  out  its  destiny,  developing  its  strength,  its  virtues,  and 
its  evils.  If  we  were  now  to  establish  a  new  constitution,  no 
thoughtful  citizen  would  wish  the  press  less  free.  If  it  has 
sometimes  been  weak,  venal,  and  vicious  under  the  reign  of  lib 
erty,  it  would  be  more  so  under  the  trammels  of  authority. 


THE  PRESS.  579 

Just  now,  Republican  France  is  seeking  to  enfranchise  her 
press.  A  committee  of  her  legislature  has  recently  made  a 
report  which  ought  to  be  published  by  every  Anglo-Saxon 
journal.  The  report  shows  that  there  were  six  thousand  prose 
cutions  of  publishers  during  the  reign  of  the  second  Napoleon. 
It  exhibits  a  long  list  of  proscribed  books,  at  the  head  of  which 
stands  a  noble  volume  by  a  distinguished  American.  Then  fol 
low  the  works  of  Macaulay,  Lamartine,  Guizot,  Cousin,  Victor 
Hugo,  George  Sand,  and  indeed  of  all  the  foremost  writers  of 
the  world.  I  give  a  single  specimen  of  the  official  record  of  the 
Commission  of  Censure,  out  of  hundreds  equally  striking:  — 
"  '  Essay  upon  the  Reform  of  Legal  Formalities  regarding  Mort 
gages.'  The  examiner  pronounces  a  favorable  opinion  of  this 
work,  but  it  contains  new  theories  not  in  accordance  with  the 
established  order  of  things.  Its  circulation  is  not  permitted." 

Without  a  free  press  "  the  established  order  of  things  "  can 
nowhere  be  improved.  Government  control  has  always  made 
the  press  servile.  I  know  of  no  better  illustration  than  a  few 
brief  extracts  from  the  French  Moniteur.  When  Napoleon  I. 
escaped  from  Elba  in  1815,  the  Moniteur,  then  the  organ  of 
Louis  XVIII. ,  thus  chronicled  the  progress  of  the  returning 
exile  from  day  to  day :  —  * 

"The  Anthropophagist  has  escaped."  "The  Corsican  ogre  has 
landed."  "The  Tiger  is  coming."  "The  Monster  has  slept  at  Greno 
ble."  "The  Tyrant  has  arrived  at  Lyons."  "The  Usurper  has  been 
seen  in  the  environs  of  Paris."  "  Bonaparte  advances  toward,  but  will 
never  reach  the  capital."  "  Napoleon  will  be  under  our  ramparts  to 
morrow."  "His  Imperial  Majesty  entered  the  Tuileries  on  the  2ist 
of  March,  in  the  midst  of  his  faithful  subjects." 

r~"\ 

\Not  for  its  own  sake  alone,  but  for  the  sake  of  society  and 
good  government,  the  press  should  be  free.  Publicity  is  the 
strong  bond  which  unites  the  people  and  their  government. 
Authority  should  do  no  act  that  will  not  bear  the  light.  But 
freedom  brings  with  it  increased  responsibility,  and  I  turn  from 
this  imperfect  historical  sketch  to  inquire  what  the  community 
demands  of  the  press. 

I  may  not  express  the  opinion  of  the  majority,  but  certainly 
it  is  my  own,  that  the  first  and  greatest  demand  which  the 
public  makes  of  its  editors  is  that  they  shall  obtain  and  publish 
the  news,  —  that  they  shall  print  a  veritable  and  intelligible 


580  THE  PRESS. 

record  of  important  current  events.  Rather  than  to  weaken, 
neglect,  or  falsify  this,  it  were  better  that  every  other  feature 
of  the  newspaper  should  be  abandonecQ 

No  intelligent  American  of  our  day  leads  an  isolated  life. 
We  are  connected  with  society  by  a  thousand  ties  of  interest, 
opinion,  and  sympathy.  To  know  what  others  are  thinking 
and  doing,  to  know  what  events  are  occurring  that  affect  the 
interests  and  character  of  the  community,  makes  each  citizen, 
not  only  a  vital  part  of  society,  but  a  living  and  intelligent  force 
to  guide  and  direct  it.  To  supply  this  knowledge,  to  furnish 
the  fresh  stimulant  of  thought,  is  the  greatest  work  of  the  jour 
nalist.  His  paper  should  be  like  the  mirror  in  Tennyson's 
"  Lady  of  Shalott,"  where, 

"  Moving  through  a  mirror  clear 
That  hangs  before  her  all  the  year, 
Shadows  of  the  world  appear." 

Thus  the  lights  and  shadows  of  the  daily  life  of  the  world  will 
become  the  possession  of  all  who  read. 

I  have  said  that  the  first  and  most  important  duty  of  the 
journalist  is  to  furnish  the  news.  But  not  every  occurrence  is 
worthy  of  the  name.  I  know  that  the  seller  of  news,  like  other 
merchants,  must  try  to  furnish  the  wares  which  his  customers 
want ;  but  if  he  wishes  to  be  an  educator  of  society,  he  must 
seek  to  furnish  a  record  of  such  events  as  will  instruct  the  com 
munity,  provoke  thought,  and  awaken  the  better  aspirations  of 
men.  If  an  editor  insists  that  he  is  merely  furnishing  wares  to 
suit  customers,  and  that  his  readers  are  responsible  for  the 
character  of  his  paper,  I  reply  that  he  should  observe  that 
commercial  law  which  requires  a  shopkeeper  not  only  to  give 
his  customers  full  weight,  but  that  his  goods  shall  be  what  he 
says  they  are.  If  he  sells  chicory  under  the  name  of  pure 
coffee,  he  is  a  swindler.  The  dairyman  who  waters  his  milk, 
and  the  grocer  who  adulterates  provisions,  are  guilty  of  fraud 
under  the  law.  And  commercial  honesty  requires  that  the 
news  furnished  by  the  journalist  shall  at  least  represent  his  best 
efforts  to  obtain  the  truth.  It  is  one  of  the  most  hopeful  signs 
of  our  journalism,  that  the  papers  which  have  achieved  the  most 
permanent  success  are  those  that  have  established  a  reputation 
for  trustworthiness  and  accuracy  in  their  statements  of  fact.  I 
can  name  a  few  papers  that  are  taken  by  men  of  both  political 
parties  solely  on  account  of  the  great  variety  and  accuracy  of 


THE  PRESS.  581 

their  news.  I  venture  the  assertion  that,  if  a  record  could  be 
kept  of  those  portions  of  our  papers  which  are  most  sought  for 
by  readers,  it  would  be  found  that  the  telegraphic  despatches 
and  the  items  of  neighborhood  news  are  read  by  twice  the  num 
ber  who  read  the  editorial  comments.  If  half  the  intelligence 
and  culture  which  is  now  expended  upon  the  editorial  page 
were  applied  to  the  careful  observation  of  current  events,  it 
would  add  immensely  to  the  value  of  our  newspapers. 

Something  more  is  needed  than  the  mere  recital  of  news ;  for 
the  majority  of  readers  do  not  grasp  the  full  significance  of 
events.  Brief  comments  pointing  out  their  significance  are 
of  the  greatest  value.  For  many  years  I  was  a  careful  reader  of 
"  The  Nation  "  ;  and  while  I  admire  the  brilliancy  of  its  edito 
rial  articles,  and  the  learning  and  culture  displayed  in  its  discus 
sions,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  its  paragraphs  entitled  "  The 
Week,"  in  which  current  events  are  briefly  commented  upon, 
are  of  more  popular  value  than  all  its  other  columns.  An 
American  essayist,  of  rare  intelligence,  has  said :  — 

"  Which,  indeed,  are  the  most  popular  papers  of  to-day  ?  Is  it  the 
journals  that  are  filled  with  long  and  ponderous  disquisitions  that  smell 
of  the  lamp,  —  articles  crammed  with  statistics  and  useful  knowledge  of 
the  penny-magazine  stamp,  which  it  is  more  painful  to  read  than  it  was 
to  write  them  ?  No ;  they  are  almost  without  exception  those  whose 
merit  lies  in  condensation ;  which,  with  full  reports  of  news,  and  a 
limited  number  of  elaborate  discussions,  give  ....  the  cream  and 
quintessence  of  things ;  whose  pithy  paragraphs,  squeezed  into  the 
smallest  possible  space,  may  be  taken  in  by  the  eye  while  the  reader  is 
occupied  in  discussing  a  cup  of  coffee,  or  devoured  like  a  sandwich  be 
tween  two  mouthfuls  of  bread  and  butter.  These  are  the  papers  which 
are  sought  for  with  avidity  and  devoured  with  keen  relish,  which  are 
passed  from  hand  to  hand  and  read  till  they  are  worn  out ;  and  to 
serve  up  the  spicy  report  they  furnish  is  a  Sisyphean  task,  which  requires 
ceaseless  industry  and  a  peculiar  combination  of  talents  which  not  one 
educated  man  in  a  thousand  possesses." 

[Next  to  its  importance  as  a  vehicle  of  and  commentator 
upon  news,  the  journal  should  have  opinions  of  its  own,  and 
should  advocate  them.  I  have  no  sympathy  with  the  Utopian 
idea  of  "  independent  journalism."  It  smacks  too  much  of  the 
millennium,  and  a  millennium  that  comes  before  its  time  would 
be  a  very  profitless  and  stupid  affair.  All  free  governments 
are  party  governments;  and  until  the  real  millennium  comes 


5  82  THE  PRESS. 

there  will  be  parties  in  religion,  in  politics,  and  in  every  realm 
of  thought.  If  independent  journalism  means  freedom  from 
the  domination  of  patronage,  wealth,  or  corruption,  —  freedom 
from  party  dictation,  —  all  good  men  would  applaud  it;  but 
the  independent  journalism  of  which  we  heard  so  much  a  few 
years  since  was  well  characterized  by  Horace  Greeley,  when  he 
said :  — 

"  That  what  styles  itself  an  '  independent '  journal  is  inevitably  a  fraud, 
we  have  long  felt  and  known.  The  essence  of  its  profession  is  an 
assumption  of  indifference  to  the  ascendency  of  this  or  the  opposite 
party,  which  does  not  exist.  In  a  free  State,  whereof  the  people  are 
intelligent,  no  journal  is  or  can  be  indifferent,  and  an  affectation  of 
impartiality  necessarily  cloaks  some  selfish  and  sinister  designs.^ 

lit  is  fair  to  presume  that  every  intelligent  man  has  con 
victions  upon  leading  public  questions.  If  there  be  a  journalist 
without  convictions,  he  might  perhaps  be  a  successful  compiler 
of  news ;  possibly  he  might  fairly  represent  the  current  phases 
of  public  opinion ;  but  he  could  be  in  no  sense  a  leader  of 
public  thought.  Let  the  journalist  defend  the  doctrines  of  the 
party  which  he  approves ;  let  him  criticise  and  condemn  the 
party  which  he  does  not  approve,  reserving  always  his  right  to 
applaud  his  opponents  or  censure  his  friends,  as  the  truth  may 
require,  and  he  will  be  independent  enough  for  a  free  country]] 

\£he  journalist  who  will  cultivate  the  habit  of  representing 
fairly  the  opinion  of  his  antagonists,  will  make  a  noble  advance 
in  his  profession.  I  take  this  occasion  to  say  that  during  the 
political  campaign  in  Ohio  last  year  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer 
gave  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  much  space  to  reports  of  Republi 
can  as  of  Democratic  meetings ;  and  I  take  pleasure  in  saying 
that,  in  some  instances  which  came  under  my  observation,  its 
editorial  notices  of  Republican  speakers  were  marked  with  a 
candor  and  fairness  as  unusual  as  they  were  honorable  to  the 
profession  of  journalism.  The  few  flowers  that  grow  over  the 
wall  of  party  are  among  the  most  graceful  and  beautiful  that 
bloom  in  the  gardens  of  the  worlcy 

\The  anonymous  element  in  journalism  is  a  source  both  of 
strength  and  of  weakness.  If  editorial  writers  should  append 
their  signatures  to  the  articles  they  write,  the  public  would  be 
better  able  to  estimate  the  value  of  their  authority;  and,  in 
controversies,  antagonists  would  contend  on  more  equal  terms. 
When  we  see  the  Tribune,  the  Times,  or  the  World,  entering 


THE  PRESS.  583 

the  Senate  chamber  and  taking  part  in  a  Senatorial  debate,  — 
on  the  currency  question,  for  example,  —  and  grappling  with 
Conkling  or  Thurman,  Edmunds  or  Bayard,  we  do  not  see  the 
editorial  combatants  themselves,  but  the  embodied  anonymous 
power  of  a  great  journal,* —  an  unknown  knight  with  visor  down, 
whose  resources  of  strength  may  be  as  boundless  as  they  are 
unknown^  If  the  readers  of  these  journals  were  assembled  in 
Cooper  Institute  with  the  same  Senators  and  editorial  writers 
before  them  on  the  platform,  they  would  be  better  able  to 
measure  and  estimate  the  authority  of  each.  It  is  not  probable 
that  the  profession  will  abandon  the  advantage  which  imperson 
ality  gives  them ;  but  I  should  be  glad  to  see  the  experiment 
tried. 

The  chief  danger  which  threatens  the  influence  and  honor  of 
the  press  is  the  tendency  of  its  liberty  to  degenerate  into  license. 
How  far  into  private  life  it  may  justly  carry  its  criticism,  what 
influence  it  ought  to  prescribe  to  personal  controversy,  may  be 
questions  for  an  honest  difference  of  opinion.  I  have  said  that 
the  purity  of  government  and  the  safety  of  society  depend  upon 
the  publicity  of  all  the  official  acts  and  opinions  of  those  in 
authority. 

Believing,  as  I  do,  in  parties  and  in  a  party  press,  I  hold  it 
equally  necessary  to  liberty  and  good  government  that  the  press 
shall  comment  with  the  utmost  freedom  upon  the  public  acts 
and  opinions  of  all  men  who  hold  positions  of  public  trust. 
Here  again,  as  in  the  department  of  news,  the  only  just  limita 
tion  is  that  it  shall  adhere  to  the  truth.  No  worthy  man  fears 
the  truth.  Unjust  criticism  and  false  accusations  are,  in  the 
long  run,  more  injurious  to  the  press  than  to  its  victims.  Still, 
wrongs  are  sometimes  committed  in  a  month  that  years  can 
not  wholly  set  right.  Let  me  illustrate  this  by  a  conspicuous 
example. 

During  our  late  war,  General  McDowell,  one  of  the  noblest 
and  most  accomplished  soldiers  of  the  Union,  was  most  unjustly 
assaulted  by  a  group  of  war  correspondents,  who  represented 
him  to  the  country  as  incompetent,  drunken,  and  perhaps  dis 
loyal.  It  was  circumstantially  stated  that  on  one  occasion  he 
was  so  drunk  that  he  nearly  fell  from  his  horse.  As  a  con 
sequence,  he  rested  for  a  long  time  under  this  cloud  of  cruel 
and  unjust  suspicion.  He  is  almost  the  only  adult  man  I  ever 
knew,  of  whom  it  can  be  said  with  truth  that  he  never  tasted 


584  THE  PRESS. 

spirituous  liquors,  tea,  coffee,  or  tobacco ;  and  yet  several  mil 
lions  of  his  countrymen  were  made  to  believe,  and  perhaps 
many  of  them  still  believe,  that  he  lost  the  battle  of  Bull  Run 
in  consequence  of  intoxication.  The  fame  of  a  worthy  public 
man  ought  to  be  cherished  as  a  part  of'the  nation's  possessions ; 
yet  the  noblest  and  best  citizens  who  have  served  the  country 
in  the  highest  capacities  have  won  their  honors  and  performed 
their  duties  amidst  showers  of  obloquy. 

Though  there  is  still  much  room  for  improvement,  I  believe 
the  character  of  the  press  has  greatly  improved  during  the  last 
half-century.  Possibly  we  now  have  newspapers  which  are 
worse  than  any  in  former  times ;  certainly  we  have  many  which 
are  far  superior  to  any  of  their  predecessors.  I  doubt  if  any 
respectable  journal  in  our  day  would  refuse  to  publish  any  let 
ter  which  an  ex-President  might  write  on  public  questions.  But 
in  1815,  the  venerable  John  Adams  wrote  to  James  Lloyd:  — 

"  '  The  avenue  to  the  public  ear  is  shut '  in  Massachusetts,  —  as  Mr. 
Randolph  says  it  is  in  Virginia.  With  us,  the  press  is  under  a  virtual 
imprimatur  to  such  a  degree  that  I  do  not  believe  I  could  get  these  let 
ters  to  you  printed  in  a  newspaper  in  Boston.  Each  party  is  deliberately 
and  studiously  kept  in  ignorance  of  the  other.  Have  naked  truth  and 
honest  candor  a  fair  hearing  or  impartial  reading  in  this  or  any  other 
country?  Have  not  narrow  bigotry,  the  most  envious  malignity,  the 
most  base,  vulgar,  sordid,  fish-woman  scurrility,  and  the  most  palpable 
lies,  a  plenary  indulgence,  and  unbounded  licentiousness?  "  l 

Now  that  could  not  occur  to-day. 

I  have  spoken  rather  frankly  upon  what  seem  to  me  some  of 
the  faults  and  benefits  of  the  newspapers.  I  have  omitted  one 
thing  that  I  will  notice  before  I  close.  It  is  due  to  the  press  to 
say  that  it  has  developed  within  the  past  few  years  as  gallant  a 
body  of  men,  of  as  broad  intelligence,  as  the  world  knows  in 
any  profession,  —  men  who  have  illustrated  what  danger  means 
by  bringing  from  every  quarter  where  danger  lurks  those 
streams  of  intelligence  which  do  so  much  to  enlighten  the 
world.  The  career  of  Stanley,  the  explorer,  the  career  of  that 
Ohio  man2  who  died  only  a  few  days  ago,  and  who  had  ren 
dered  himself  so  famous  in  English  journalism,  the  careers  of 
many  noble  men  who  had  made  that  profession  grander  than 
ever  before,  have  increased  the  respect  of  all  men  for  it,  and 

1  The  Life  and  Works  of  John  Adams,  Vol.  X.  p.  117. 

2  See  note  at  the  end  of  this  Address. 


THE  PRESS.  585 

have  given  hopes  that  journalism  is  increasing  in  the  appre 
ciation  of  all  that  is  necessary  to  making  it  noble  and  generous 
and  charitable.  The  duty  of  enlarging  the  sphere  of  journalism 
rests  with  us  who  are  outside  of  it.  If,  with  all  the  means  in 
our  power,  we  can  make  the  people  so  intelligent  that  they  will 
patronize  only  the  best  journals,  we  shall  have  done  our  part; 
and  if,  on  your  part,  you  do  so  enlarge  the  sphere  of  your  work 
in  increasing  its  intelligence,  justice,  and  force,  that  ignorant 
and  weak  men  will  not  want  your  journal,  and  only  the  worthy 
and  noble  will  desire  it,  then,  between  you  and  us,  the  pro 
fession  of.journalism  will  go  on  improving  with  the  growth  of 
civilization  and  with  the  increasing  security  of  liberty. 


J.  A.  MACGAHAN,  the  "  Ohio  man  "  referred  to  above,  was  born  in 
Ohio,  in  1844 ;  was  a  correspondent  in  Europe  as  early  as  1868,  and  for 
some  years  did  duty  in  Europe  and  Asia  as  correspondent  of  the  New 
York  Herald ;  was  with  the  army  of  General  Bourbaki  in  France  in  1870  ; 
was  in  Paris  during  the  Commune,  and  was  saved  from  death  at  the 
hands  of  the  Communists  by  the  United  States  Minister ;  went  to  Khiva 
with  the  Russian  army  in  1873,  contrary  to  General  Kauffman's  orders; 
reported  the  Carlist  outbreak  in  Spain  in  1874  ;  went  to  the  Arctic  world 
in  1875  ;  exposed,  as  correspondent  of  the  London  Daily  News,  the 
Turkish  atrocities  in  Bulgaria,  in  1876,  thereby  causing  a  great  sensation 
in  England;  was  with  the  Russian  army  in  Turkey  in  1877,  where  he 
was  for  a  time  an  associate  of  the  famous  correspondent,  Archibald 
Forbes;  died  in  Constantinople,  of  fever,  in  1878. 


HONEST     MONEY. 

SPEECH   DELIVERED   IN   FANEUIL  HALL,   BOSTON, 
SEPTEMBER  10,  1878. 


T^ELLOW-CITIZENS,— -Your  chairman  has  said  that  I  will 
r  speak  to  you  upon  the  political  issues  of  the  day.  Real 
political  issues  cannot  be  manufactured  by  the  leaders,  of  politi 
cal  parties,  and  real  ones  cannot  be  evaded  by  political  parties. 
The  real  political  issues  of  the  day  declare  themselves,  and 
come  out  of  the  depths  of  that  deep  which  we  call  public 
opinion.  The  nation  has  a  life  of  its  own,  as  distinctly  defined 
as  the  life  of  an  individual.  The  signs  of  its  growth  and  the 
periods  of  its  development  make  the  issues  declare  themselves ; 
and  the  man  or  the  political  party  that  does  not  discover  them 
has  not  learned  the  character  of  the  nation's  life.  Now,  as 
heretofore,  attempts  are  being  made  to  create  political  issues. 
They  will  all  fail.  One  group  of  politicians  are  seeking  to  find 
in  the  reminiscences  of  the  Presidential  election  of  1876  the 
political  issues  of  this  year.  They  cannot  raise  the  dead. 
Others  believe  they  can  make  State  issues  the  chief  topic  of  this 
year.  But  you  are  about  to  create  the  Forty-sixth  Congress, 
and  give  it  the  impulse  of  your  aspirations  and  opinions.  The 
issues  are  too  large  for  the  boundaries  of  any  State.  They 
declare  themselves  and  challenge  you  to  meet  them.  The  issue 
of  this  fall  —  for  in  my  judgment  there  is  but  one  issue  — 
is  the  necessary  development  of  the  greatest  fact  of  our  cen 
tury,  —  the  war  for  the  Union.  That  great  fact  unfolded  itself 
before  the  American  people  in  four  acts :  — 

First,  the  war  of  arms.  When  that  was  upon  us,  it  absorbed 
all  other  issues  and  silenced  all  other  controversies.  It  did 
not  end  till  the  last  rebel  flag  went  down  in  surrender;  then 
the  war  ended,  and  men  who  afterward  sought  to  keep  it  alive 
were  trying  to  raise  the  dead. 


HONEST  MONEY.  587 

Then  followed  the  war  of  reconstruction,  or  rather  the  recon 
struction  made  necessary  by  the  war;  and  however  well  it  may 
have  been  done,  or  however  ill  it  may  have  been  done,  it  was 
done.  When  the  last  of  the  rebel  States  came  back  to  its 
allegiance,  and  had  found  its  place  in  the  national  government 
under  the  amended  Constitution,  the  war  was  ended,  for  better 
or  for  worse.  That  issue  cannot  be  revived. 

There  was  another  act  of  our  war  which  commenced  with 
and  continued  longer  than  the  war  of  armies,  than  the  war  of 
reconstruction,  —  it  was  our  war  of  diplomacy.  The  entan 
glements  with  foreign  nations  which  grew  out  of  the  war,  and 
the  long  and  perilous  troubles  with  England,  conducted  so  hon 
orably  and  so  wisely,  we  saw  ended,  on  the  last  night  of  the 
late  session  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  when  Congress 
made  the  last  appropriation  to  pay  the  final  award  due  from 
America.1  With  that  act,  and  the  payment  it  orders,  the  history 
of  our  war  of  diplomacy  is  closed  forever. 

The  fourth  act  of  the  war  was  the  creation  and  management 
of  its  finances.  That  began  when  the  first  ration  was  bought 
for  the  first  soldier ;  it  continued  through  all  the  turbulent  days 
of  battle ;  it  continues  to-day,  and  will  continue  until  the  last 
pensioner  is  paid,  and  the  last  obligation  is  honorably  and  com 
pletely  satisfied. 

The  patriotic  citizens  of  this  republic  enlisted  for  the  whole 
war,  —  enlisted  to  serve  till  all  its  acts  should  end ;  they  en 
listed  for  the  war  of  arms,  for  the  war  of  reconstruction,  for  the 
war  of  diplomacy ;  and  they  will  not  desert,  or  be  mustered  out, 
until  the  war  of  finance  is  fully  settled  in  harmony  with  the 
honor  of  the  nation  and  the  highest  and  best  interests  of  the 
American  people. 

Three  great  chapters  are  closed ;  the  fourth,  the  final  chapter, 
is  still  open  and  unfinished.  Our  finances  —  the  heritage  of  the 
war,  the  need  of  the  hour  —  are  now  first  in  the  public  thought, 
and  from  them  no  party  can  divert  public  attention.  Their 
adjustment  is  the  issue  of  all  issues.  Other  questions  of  impor 
tance  may  be  discussed,  but  this  cannot  be  evaded.  The  recon 
ciliation  of  the  South,  the  pacification  of  the  country  so  much 
talked  of,  is,  in  large  measure,  effected.  The  Republican  party 
has  said,  and  says  to-day,  that,  forgetting  all  the  animosities  of 
the  war,  forgetting  all  its  fierceness,  it  reaches  out  both  hands  to 

1  See  remarks  on  the  Halifax  Award,  ante,  p.  571. 


588  HONEST  MONEY. 

the  gallant  men  who  fought  us,  and  pledges  all  fellowship  and 
brotherhood  on  this  sole  condition,  —  and  that  condition  it  will 
insist  upon  forever,  —  that  in  the  war  for  the  Union  we  were 
right,  forever  right,  and  that  in  the  war  against  the  Union  they 
were  wrong,  forever  wrong.  We  never  made  terms,  we  will 
never  make  terms,  with  the  man  who  denies  the  everlasting 
rightfulness  of  our  cause.  To  do  that  would  be  treason  to 
the  dead  and  dishonor  to  the  living.  On  this  basis  only  can 
pacification  be  complete.  We  ask  that  it  be  realized;  and 
we  shall  consider  that  it  is  realized  when  it  is  just  as  safe  and 
just  as  honorable  for  a  good  citizen  of  South  Carolina  to  be 
a  Republican  as  it  is  for  a  good  citizen  of  Massachusetts  to  be 
a  Democrat. 

Other  questions  will  be  reached  in  the  order  of  their  develop 
ment.  But  to-day,  in  the  foreground  of  all,  is  the  financial  ques 
tion.  To  this  I  invite  your  consideration. 

This  great  question  has  two  faces.  One  of  them  looks  back 
to  the  war  out  of  which  it  sprung ;  the  other  looks  forward  to 
the  future  of  the  people  and  their  interests ;  and  the  system  of 
finance  that  settles  the  issue  rightly  will  respect  the  past  and 
provide  for  the  future.  The  finances  of  the  war,  fellow-citizens, 
can  be  summed  up  in  a  sentence.  While  the  nation  went  into 
all  our  homes,  and,  laying  its  strong  hand  upon  our  bravest  and 
best,  took  them  into  the  field  to  die,  if  need  be,  it  laid  the  heavy 
hand  of  taxation  upon  us  to  support  and  maintain  the  war.  It 
went  to  all,  rich  and  poor  alike,  and  asked  for  contributions  to 
carry  on  the  war.  At  that  time  the  man  who  helped  the  gov 
ernment  with  his  money  was  regarded  almost  equal  in  honor  to 
the  man  who  helped  with  his  life.  If  you  will  read  the  records 
of  that  legislation,  if  you  will  read  the  messages  of  our  Presi 
dent,  you  will  find  them  everywhere  praising  the  patriotism  of 
the  citizens  who  came  forward  with  their  money  and  helped  the 
government.  In  1864,  President  Lincoln  said  it  was  a  most 
gratifying  fact,  that,  of  eighteen  hundred  millions  loaned  to  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  almost  every  dollar  had  been 
loaned  by  citizens.  He  congratulated  himself  that  so  many 
comparatively  poor  people  had  put  their  mites  into  the  loan 
to  help  the  government;  and  he  went  so  far  as  to  suggest, 
in  his  message  for  that  year,  that  Congress  should  pass  a  law 
exempting  a  limited  amount  of  some  future  issue  of  public 
securities  from  taxation  and  from  seizure  for  debt,  as  a  means 


HONEST  MONEY.  589 

of  encouraging  a  more  nearly  equal  distribution  of  the  debt, 
and  of  enabling  every  prudent  person  to  set  aside  a  small 
annuity. 

I  recall  these  facts,  because  we  are  so  apt  to  forget  the  events 
of  fourteen  years  ago. 

But  taxes  and  loans,  great  as  they  were,  were  insufficient  to 
supply  the  enormous  demands  of  war.  When  the  government 
found  they  could  not  borrow  money  fast  enough,  in  their  ex 
tremity  and  distress  they  took  a  step  that  the  American  nation 
had  never  taken  before  since  the  Constitution  was  formed. 
They  took  the  step  of  forcing  a  loan  upon  the  people,  to  meet 
the  immediate  emergencies  of  the  war. 

I  call  your  attention  to  the  remarkable  fact,  that  when  they 
took  that  step,  in  1862,  there  are  not  now  known  to  have  been 
ten  men  on  this  continent  who  did  not  believe  that  paper 
money  should  be  redeemable  in  coin  at  the  will  of  the  holder. 
That  was  a  nation  of  thirty-one  millions  of  Americans.  What 
ever  has  occurred  since  to  change  the  minds  of  men  has  occurred 
within  sixteen  years.  Now  let  us  take  that  as  the  basis  of  the 
discussion  to-night.  No  man  ever  understood  better  than  the 
men  of  that  day  thought  they  understood  the  danger  of  that 
step.  The  President  of  the  United  States  —  that  glorious  man, 
so  filled  with  love  for  all  that  is  good,  and  true,  and  patriotic  — 
deplored  this  issue  of  paper  money.  Every  Senator  and  Repre 
sentative  in  Congress  deplored  the  necessity  that  compelled 
them  to  abandon,  for  the  time  being,  the  ground  of  acknowl 
edged  safety,  and  issue  paper  that  could  not  be  at  all  times 
exchangeable  for  coin.  Both  President  and  Congress  sought 
earnestly  to  avoid  the  known  dangers  of  such  a  step.  In  the 
first  act  that  authorized  the  issue  of  greenbacks,  they  limited 
the  amount,  and  provided  for  funding  them  in  a  coin  bond. 
Later,  when  an  additional  issue  was  unavoidable,  they  made  it 
a  fundamental  condition  that  the  volume  should  never  exceed 
four  hundred  millions,  and  fifty  millions  additional  for  redeem 
ing  a  temporary  loan.  That  pledge  stands  in  our  law  to-day, 
—  as  yet  unbroken,  —  and  covers,  with  its  high  sanctions,  every 
outstanding  greenback.  That  was  not  all.  They  firmly  an 
chored  themselves  to  coin  by  providing,  in  the  same  bill  that 
created  the  greenbacks,  that  all  our  revenues  from  customs 
should  be  paid  in  coin,  and  be  held  for  paying  the  interest  on 
our  debt,  for  paying  the  bonds  issued  in  connection  with  the 


590  HONEST  MONEY. 

debt,  and  for  redeeming  the  greenback  currency  as  soon  as  pos 
sible.  Let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  this  was  the  basis  on  which 
the  men  of  1862  started  out. 

But  another  element  was  added.  The  men  of  1862  saw  that 
the  two  thousand  State  banks  were  bound  by  no  tie  of  immedi 
ate  interest  to  aid  the  nation ;  and  they  sought  to  bring  them 
to  the  help  of  the  government,  and  at  the  same  time  to  pre 
serve  those  instrumentalities  by  which  the  supply  of  currency 
should  be  determined  by  the  law  of  supply  and  demand.  To 
meet  both  these  objects,  President  Lincoln,  in  his  message  of 
December  i,  1862,  recommended  the  organization  of  national 
banks.  He  declared  that  such  banks  would  greatly  aid  the  pub 
lic  credit,  and  "  would  at  once  protect  labor  against  the  evils  of 
a  vicious  currency,  and  facilitate  commerce  by  cheap  and  safe 
exchanges."  These  were  Lincoln's  words  in  recommending  the 
national  banking  system.  Great  as  were  the  tasks  undertaken 
by  him  and  his  associates,  they  did  not  claim  wisdom  enough 
to  regulate  the  inexorable  laws  of  value  and  of  trade. 

And  here,  fellow-citizens,  let  me  pause  long  enough  to  con 
sider  a  phrase  much  used  in  the  political  discussions  of  the  day, 
—  the  statement  that  we  want  a  currency  large  enough  to  meet 
the  wants  of  trade.  We  do.  I  concur  in  that  statement.  But 
will  any  man  here  tell  me  what  the  wants  of  trade  are?  Is 
there  any  man  in  America  wise  enough  to  measure  the  wants  of 
trade  and  tell -just  how  much  currency  is  needed?  Who  for 
gets  the  infinite  difficulty  of  finding  a  man  with  brain  enough 
and  resource  enough  to  feed  and  clothe  and  house  an  army? 
Its  house  is  of  the  rudest,  —  only  a  piece  of  cloth,  —  its  clothing 
is  of  the  simplest,  and  its  food  is  a  definitely  prescribed  ration. 
But  it  is  considered  worthy  of  the  glory  of  one  glorious  life  to 
be  able  to  feed  and  clothe  and  house  an  army  of  a  hundred 
thousand  men.  Now,  fellow-citizens,  suppose  somebody  should 
offer  to  take  the  contract  of  feeding,  clothing,  and  housing 
Boston  and  its  suburbs,  including  half  a  million  of  people. 
Remember  that  all  nations  are  placed  under  contribution  to 
supply  the  city  of  Boston:  every  clime  sends  its  supplies; 
every  part  of  our  own  land,  all  our  lines  of  transportation,  are 
looked  to  to  supply  the  tables,  houses,  and  clothing  of  this 
community.  Do  you  suppose  any  man  in  the  world  is  wise 
enough,  is  skilful  enough,  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  popula 
tion  in  a  circle  of  twenty  miles  around  Boston?  Now  multiply 


HONEST  MONEY.  $gi 

this  by  a  hundred,  and  get  the  population  of  the  United  States. 
Is  there  any  man  in  this  world  wise  enough,  is  there  any  Con 
gress  in  the  world  wise  enough,  to  measure  the  wants  of  forty- 
five  millions  of  people  and  tell  just  what  is  needed  for  their 
supplies?  No,  fellow-citizens;  but*  there  is  something  behind 
legislation  that  does  measure  them,  —  does  all  so  quietly  and 
so  perfectly,  every  man  seeking  his  own  interest,  millions  of 
men  acting  for  themselves,  acting  under  the  great  law  of  supply 
and  demand,  the  laws  of  trade,  —  there  is  something  that  does 
feed  Boston,  feed  the  United  States,  clothe,  house,  and  transport 
the  nation,  and  carry  on  all  its  mighty  works  in  perfect  har 
mony  and  with  greatest  ease.  The  higher  law  above  legisla 
tion, —  the  law  of  demand  and  supply,  —  pervading  and  covering 
all,  settles  that  great  question  far  better  than  the  wisdom  of  one 
man,  or  of  a  thousand  men,  can  settle  it. 

Now,  one  of  the  great  means  by  which  all  these  mighty 
transactions  are  carried  on  is  the  currency  that  circulates  and 
exchanges  values  among  all  these  people.  Every  transaction, 
abroad  or  at  home,  of  the  $1,100,000,000  of  trade  that  we 
have  with  Europe  and  Asia,  of  the  ten  times  greater  value  of 
our  home  trade,  is  carried  on  and  regulated  by  that  great  per 
vading  law,  higher  than  legislation  and  wiser  than  the  wisdom 
of  men.  To  that  law  we  must  conform  our  currency  system, 
or  it  will  perish.  Any  Congress  or  any  party  that  tell  you 
they  are  going  to  vote  a  sufficient  supply  of  currency  for  the 
wants  of  trade,  tell  you  they  are  going  to  do  an  impossibility. 
It  cannot  be.  And  it  was  for  this  reason  that  the  men  of  1862 
and  1864  established  a  system  of  banking  for  the  republic, 
which  held  banks  to  the  strictest  accountability  for  the  charac 
ter  of  their  securities  to  their  depositors  and  bill-holders ;  and 
the  volume  of  whose  circulation  was  to  depend,  not  upon  the 
uncertain  will  and  more  uncertain  wisdom  of  Congress,  but 
upon  the  law  of  demand  and  supply.  Bound  always  to  redeem 
their  notes  in  greenbacks  or  coin,  their  own  interests  and  safety 
would  lead  them  to  enlarge  or  contract  that  volume,  as  the  tide 
of  business  should  ebb  or  flow. 

Such  was  the  origin  and  such  the  character  of  the  financial 
system  established  by  the  men  who  guided  the  war  for  the 
Union.  That  system  is  to-day  attacked  with  a  vehemence  and 
fury  hardly  paralleled  in  the  annals  of  political  warfare.  The 
wisdom  of  Lincoln  and  Chase  is  denounced  as  folly.  Their 


592  HONEST  MONEY. 

patriotism  is  branded  as  crime.  We  are  told  that  the  system 
they  established  and  the  obligations  they  incurred  are  intoler 
able  oppression,  and  must  be  overthrown.  Especially  we  are 
told  that  all  our  subsequent  efforts  to  honor  these  pledges,  and 
maintain  the  system  thus  established,  are  unpatriotic  and  unjust. 

Let  us  go  deeper  into  the  heart  of  this  question.  Let  us 
consider  the  relation  of  the  national  government  to  the  great 
commercial  and  financial  distress  from  which  our  people  have 
been  suffering  during  the  last  five  years. 

Doubtless  this  distress  is  in  great  part  due  to  the  vast  eco 
nomic  disturbance  caused  by  the  war;  though  it  must  be 
remembered  that  once  in  about  twenty  years  such  periods  have 
occurred,  not  here  alone,  but  throughout  the  civilized  world, 
and  have  often  sprung  from  causes  wholly  beyond  the  reach  of 
human  legislation. 

What  can  the  government  do  to  help  a  people  in  distress? 
That  question  you  have  a  right  to  ask ;  and  whatever  legisla 
tion  can  do,  it  ought  to  do.  What  it  cannot  do,  we  are  unwise 
to  demand  of  it,  and  it  is  futile  to  demand  it.  Now,  let  me  tell 
you  some  of  the  things  that  government  can  do ;  and  first  of 
all,  the  best  thing  government  can  do,  the  first  great  thing  that 
government  can  do,  is  to  get  out  of  the  way,  and  not  be  an 
obstruction  to  the  return  of  prosperity. 

No  one  will  deny  that  the  heavy  burden  imposed  by  the  war 
has  been  and  is  a  hindrance  to  the  business  prosperity  of  our 
people.  Let  us  try  to  measure  the  vastness  of  that  burden. 
In  1865,  the  debt  imposed  upon  us  by  the  war  amounted  to 
$2,757,000,000.  Upon  that  debt  we  were  compelled  to  pay 
interest  to  the  sum  of  $151,000,000  in  coin,  a  dreadful  annual 
burden.  During  the  year  after  the  war,  we  paid  over  the 
national  counter  $520,000,000  to  meet  current  demands  upon 
the  treasury,  including  interest  on  the  public  debt.  These  tre 
mendous  burdens  it  seemed  for  a  time  we  could  not  carry; 
there  were  wicked  men,  who  said  we  ought  not  to  try  to  carry 
them,  and  despairing  men,  who  said  we  could  not ;  but  the  brave 
nation  said,  this  burden  is  the  price  of  our  country's  life,  the 
price  of  blood,  and  the  price  of  liberty,  and  therefore  we  will 
bow  ourselves  and  take  up  the  load.  We  will  carry  it  upon  the 
stalwart  shoulders  of  the  republic. 

What  has  your  government  done  to  relieve  you  of  that  load? 
On  the  first  day  of  this  month  the  principal  of  that  mighty 


HONEST  MONEY. 


593 


public  debt  had  been  reduced  by  honest  payment  $722,000,000. 
More  than  one  fourth  of  the  whole  volume  of  it  had  been  paid 
in  honor,  and  laid  away  as  a  part  of  the  glory  of  the  republic. 
In  1866  you  were  paying  more  than  $150,000,000  a  year  in  coin 
as  interest  on  your  burden.  What  are  you  paying  to-day? 
Ninety-six  millions  of  dollars.  You  have  reduced  by  $56,000,000 
a  year  the  load  that  you  carried  as  interest  on  the  cost  of  the 
war.  The  third  year  after  the  war  the  total  burden  of  national 
expenditure  was  $377,000,000.  You  have  reduced  that  till  it 
is  now  but  $236,000,000.  Since  the  war  closed,  our  national 
taxes  have  been  reduced  by  the  sum  of  $250,000,000,  —  more 
than  half  of  all  the  taxation  of  1866.  Nothing  is  now  left  but 
the  tax  on  imports,  which  incidentally  protects  the  interests  and 
business  of  the  country,  and  the  internal  taxes  upon  banks,  and 
upon  drinking,  smoking,  and  chewing.  These  last  are  volun 
tary  taxes,  which  no  citizen  is  obliged  to  pay,  but  is  honored  for 
altogether  evading,  by  refusing  to  smoke  or  drink. 

In  addition  to  the  direct  burden  of  tax  which  the  war  imposed 
upon  the  people,  it  compelled  the  government  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  business  prosperity  by  being  the  chief  borrower  of 
money.  In  the  days  of  danger,  when  the  risk  was  great,  the 
treasury  was  compelled  to  pay  a  high  rate  of  interest,  and  this 
made  the  rate  still  higher  for  all  private  loans.  The  high  gov 
ernment  rate  was  a  serious  obstacle  in  the  way  of  private  pros 
perity.  But  the  pledged  faith  of  the  nation  has  been  so  faith 
fully  kept,  and  its  credit  so  enhanced,  that,  year  by  year,  the 
debt  has  been  refunded  at  a  lower  rate  of  interest,  from  seven 
and  three  tenths  to  six  per  cent,  to  five,  to  four  and  a  half,  to 
four;  and  to-day, while  I  address  you,  the  American  people  are 
taking  the  four  per  cent  bonds  of  the  government  at  the  rate  of 
$2,500,000  a  day,  thus  saving  the  two  per  cent  of  difference 
between  that  and  the  six  per  cent  of  interest.  These  are  the 
methods  by  which  good  faith  helps  to  lighten  the  burden  of 
the  people.  By  every  act  making  the  credit  of  your  government 
better,  you  make  the  load  of  the  people  lighter. 

Thus  far,  fellow-citizens,  we  have  gone  on  in  honor ;  but  we 
remember  one  unfulfilled  pledge.  We  remember  that  every 
note  of  the  United  States  that  circulates  as  money  is  a  promise 
to  pay  in  the  coin  of  the  Constitution.  We  remember  that  every 
note  carries  on  its  face  the  pledge  of  the  nation's  honor.  We 
seek  to  keep  the  pledge  and  redeem  the  promise.  All  the 

VOL.    II.  3** 


594  HONEST  MONEY. 

finance  of  the  period  is  summed  up  in  the  present  overmaster 
ing  duty  to  resume  specie  payments  and  keep  the  promise. 
And  here,  fellow-citizens,  I  meet  the  chief  debate  on  the  issues 
of  this  year.  This  proposition  is  met  throughout  America  by 
indignant  opposition,  and  we  stand  to-day  in  the  very  teeth  of 
a  storm  that  threatens  to  sweep  all  before  it.  On  that  ground 
we  meet  our  antagonists,  and  challenge  them  to  the  combat. 
In  order  that  we  may  understand  precisely  what  the  field  of 
battle  is,  that  we  may  know  just  what  the  contest  is,  let  us  get 
from  our  antagonists  the  statement  of  their  grounds.  They  are 
not  all  agreed.  There  is  Conflict  of  opinion  among  them,  and 
yet  they  all  agree  in  fighting  against  the  resumption  of  specie 
payments.  But  let  us  get  their  ground. 

There  has  arisen  among  us  within  the  last  few  years  a  body  of 
men  who  claim  to  have  made  a  discovery  of  the  greatest  possi 
ble  importance ;  and  I  want  to  say  for  them,  if  their  discovery 
is  what  they  claim,  it  is  the  most  important  discovery  on  the 
subject  of  finance  ever  announced  to  man.  I  wish  to  treat 
them  with  the  fairness  of  getting  their  problem,  their  propo 
sition,  from  themselves.  They  claim  to  have  discovered  that 
there  is  no  longer  any  room  for  the  old  notion  which  the  United 
States  has  believed  in  for  a  hundred  years,  —  that  everybody 
believed  in  in  1862  and  in  1865, — the  notion  that  there  ought  to 
be  value  behind  paper  money.  They  claim  that,  money  being 
itself  a  creature  of  law,  law  alone  can  create  it,  and  can  create 
it  out  of  whatever  it  pleases,  and  make  that  money  which  it 
declares  to  be  money.  Let  us  give  them  the  full  benefit  of 
this  proposition.  They  declare  that  as  the  Creator  said,  "  Let 
there  be  light,  and  there  was  light,"  so  a  sovereign  govern 
ment  may  say,  "  Let  this  piece  of  paper  be  money,"  and  it  will 
be  money.  Let  the  republic  pronounce  its  fiat  over  a  piece 
of  paper,  and  it  becomes  money,  and  hence  they  call  it  "  fiat 
money."  Now,  as  to  what  they  will  do  with  the  fiat  money,  as 
to  how  much  they  will  have  of  it,  they  are  not  agreed.  Let  it 
be  remembered  that  the  remains  of  the  old  Greenback  party  of 
1876  made  Pomeroy  their  chief  and  manager,  and  they  have 
now  in  the  United  States  four  thousand  five  hundred  organized 
clubs,  —  Greenback  clubs, —  which  hold  the  doctrine  I  have  just 
described ;  they  also  declare  that  all  the  interest-bearing  debt 
of  the  United  States  is  a  crime  against  the  people,  and  ought 
instantly  to  be  paid  in  this  fiat  money,  and  if  the  holders  of  the 


HONEST  MONEY.  595 

bonds  will  not  take  the  fiat  money  for  them,  then  every  bond 
of  the  United  States  ought  to  be  burned,  and  the  obligation 
settled  by  fire.  Now  that,  fellow-citizens,  is  the  doctrine  advo 
cated  to-day  by  the  four  thousand  five  hundred  Greenback 
clubs  in  the  United  States. 

Other  opponents  of  resumption  are  unwilling  to  go  so  far. 
They  do  not  adopt  the  theory  of  fiat  money;  but  they  do 
say:  "We  will  overturn  the  system  established  by  Lincoln, 
by  which  the  machinery  for  supplying  the  country  with  cur 
rency  was  geared  on  to  the  business  of  the  country,  so  that 
the  supply  was  governed  by  the  automatic  operations  of  the 
laws  of  trade;  we  will  break  that  all  down;  we  will  abolish 
the  national  banks ;  we  will  issue  in  the  place  of  their  notes 
$324,000,000  more  of  the  greenbacks,  such  as  we  now  have." 
This,  I  say  to  you,  is  the  demand  of  the  Democratic  party  of 
the  State  of  Ohio.  It  is  the  demand  of  the  Democratic  party 
in  almost,  if  not  every  State,  west  of  New  York.  That,  I  say, 
is  the  proposition  of  the  great  mass  of  the  Democracy  west  of 
New  York  and  south  of  the  Potomac. 

Another  scheme,  with  some  new  features,  combines  many  of 
the  elements  already  mentioned,  and  is  a  centre  around  which 
many  opponents  of  resumption  revolve.  That  I  may  not  mis 
represent  an  antagonist,  I  read,  from  a  speech  made  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  on  the  26th  of  February  last,  what  is 
perhaps  the  clearest  and  most  intelligible  statement  that  has 
been  made  of  the  new  "  American  System  of  Finance." 

"  I  demand  that  that  dollar  shall  be  issued  by  the  government  alone, 

in  the  exercise  of  its  high  prerogative  and  constitutional  power 

I  want  that  dollar  stamped  upon  some  convenient  and  cheap  material  of 
the  least  possible  intrinsic  value,  so  that  neither  its  wear  nor  its  destruc 
tion  will  be  any  loss  to  the  government  issuing  it.  I  also  desire  the 
dollar  to  be  made  of  such  material  for  the  purpose  that  it  shall  never  be 
exported  or  desirable  to  carry  out  of  the  country.  Framing  an  Ameri 
can  system  of  finance,  I  do  not  propose  to  adapt  it  to  the  wants  of  any 
other  nation,  and  especially  the  Chinese,  who  are  nearly  one  quarter  of 
the  world.  I  desire  that  the  dollar  so  issued  shall  never  be  redeemed. 
I  see  no  more  reason  why  the  unit  of  measure  of  value  should  be  re 
deemed  or  redeemable,  than  that  the  yardstick  with  which  I  measure 
my  cloth,  or  the  quart  with  which  I  measure  my  milk,  should  be  re 
deemed."1 

1  Congressional  Record,  February  26,  1878,  p.  1356. 


596  HONEST  MONEY. 

The  new  scheme  is  completed  by  making  this  non-exporta 
ble  and  intrinsically  valueless  dollar  interconvertible  into  three- 
sixty-five  bonds. 

That,  fellow-citizens,  is  perhaps  the  most  succinct  statement 
of  the  new  system  of  American  finance  which. now  steps  into 
the  arena  to  confront  the  ideas  I  have  been  expressing,  and 
it  is  put  forward  by  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  of  Massachusetts. 

Now,  let  us  give  the  subject  a  fair  consideration.  As  I  said 
a  little  while  ago,  if  the  doctrines  laid  down  in  what  I  have  read 
be  true,  if  they  are  based  on  sound  principles,  they  constitute 
the  most  important  discovery  in  finance  that  the  centuries  have 
known ;  and  I  want  to  adopt  them,  you  ought  to  adopt  them, 
every  man  in  the  world  ought  to  adopt  them.  Let  us  meet 
them  with  the  fairness  of  seekers  after  truth. 

Now  the  first  question  I  put  as  to  these  propositions  is  this : 
Can  the  government  of  the  United  States,  by  a  mere  act  of  law, 
create  real  money?  There  were  three  things  that  our  fathers 
put  into  the  Constitution  which  they  evidently  believed  Con 
gress  could  do.  They  said  Congress  should  have  the  power  to 
fix  the  standard  of  weights  and  measures,  to  coin  money,  and 
to  declare  the  value  of  coins.  Let  us  try  to  get  down  to  these 
fundamental  ideas. 

What  can  Congress  do  about  a  standard  of  measures?    Can  it 
create  measures?     What  is  a  standard  of  measure?    It  is  some 
thing  that  measures  what  we  call  extension,  length,   breadth, 
or  height.     Who   made   extension?     Did  Congress    create    it? 
Did  human  law  invent  it?     Extension  is  a  quality  of  the  ele 
ments  which  pervade  the  universe,  and  is  as  independent  of 
human  laws  as  the  stars  above  the  earth  are  independent  of  the 
earth.     Can  you  conceive  of  such  a  thing  as  a  legislature  cre 
ating  length,  —  unless,  indeed,  length  of  session?     This  is  what 
the  law  can  do.     It  can  take  something  that  has  length,  and 
name  it  a  yard ;  it  can  separate  that  yard  into  three  equal  parts, 
and  call  each  part  a  foot;   it  can  separate  the  foot  into  twelve 
equal  parts,  and  call  each  part  an  inch ;   but  it  can  no  more  cre 
ate  length  than  it  could  create  the  universe.     It  can  subdivide 
and  name  the  standard ;   but  it  can  create  none  of  the  elements 
which  go  to  make  up  extension.     Try  to  conceive  of  a  standard 
of  length  which  in  itself  has  no  length.     The  thing  is  inconceiv 
able.     I  challenge  the  intelligence  of  any  man  who  hears  me  to 
think   of  such  a  thing  as  a  measure   of  length  which  has   no 


HONEST  MONEY.  597 

length  in  itself.  Suppose  you  were  to  say  that  the  light  which 
gleams  from  this  burner  shall  be  called  a  foot,  —  suppose  a  lady 
to  say,  "I  will  call  the  fragrance  of  a  moss-rose  a  foot,"  —  does 
that  mean  anything?  It  is  inconceivable.  No;  by  laws  higher 
than  human  legislation  length,  depth,  height,  were  created ;  men 
can  only  name  and  declare  a  definite  length  as  the  standard. 

And  so  with  weight.  When  Congress  came  to  fix  a  standard 
of  weight,  it  could  not  create  weight,  but  it  could  take  a  piece 
of  metal  that  has  weight  in  itself  and  name  it  a  pound ;  could 
subdivide  it  into  sixteen  parts,  and  call  each  one  an  ounce; 
but  it  could  not  create  a  standard  of  weight  unless  the  weight 
was  there. 

Now  let  us  consider  the  idea. of  value.     It  is  more  compli 
cated  and  abstract  than  the  notion  of  length  or  weight,  but  it 
is  no  less  real.     What  you  and  I  call  value,  what  the  business 
world  calls  value,  is  real  and  tangible,     Your  merchandise  has 
value  for  the  qualities  which  are  in  it;   your  grain,  your  pro 
ducts,  all  that  go  to  make  up  wealth,  have  value  for  the  ex 
changeable  qualities  in  them.     And  I  ask  any  man  who  hears 
me  to-night,  if  it  be  conceivable  that  you  can  measure  value 
by  that  which  has  no  value  in  itself,   any  more  than  you  can 
measure  length  by  that  which  has  no  length,  or  weight  by  that 
which  has  no  weight.     I  defy  any  man  to  describe  that  opera 
tion  of  mind  by  which  you  can  conceive  a  measure  of  value 
that  in  itself  has  no  value.     I  recollect  once  to  have  read  a 
singular  sentence  from  Horace  Greeley's  Political  Economy,  in 
which  he  said  he  did  not  know  but  it  was  possible  to  get  a 
standard  of  value  that  was  not  so  costly  as  coin.     "  For  in 
stance,"  said  he,  "  I  suppose  a  gold  yardstick  would  be  a  very 
nice  thing  to  have,  but  it  would  be  a  costly  yardstick.     I  think 
we  might  have  one  of  paper,  or  of  wood,  or  of  iron,  that  would 
answer  just  as  well,  if  it  would  measure  just  as  exactly."     Cer 
tainly  we   could;   but   can  you  have  a  yardstick  that   has  no 
length?     If  not,  can  you  find  a  measure  of  values  that  has  no 
value?     It  is  inconceivable,  and  the  fiat  of  law  cannot  create  it. 

When  our  fathers  established  the  measure  of  value,  they  took 
a  fixed  quantity  of  precious  metal,  and  coined  it  by  stamping 
upon  it  the  certificate  of  the  government  that  the  weight  and 
fineness  of  the  coin  was  precisely  what  it  professed  to  be.  They 
sought,  not  to  create,  but  to  ascertain  and  declare  the  value  of 
their  coins  as  determined  in  the  markets  of  the  world. 


598  HONEST  MONEY. 

The  supreme  test  of  real  money  is  this :  cast  a  hundred  dol 
lars  of  it  into  the  smelting-pot,  and  the  blackened,  melted  mass 
will  sell  in  the  market  for  just  one  hundred  dollars  less  the 
waste  of  melting.  But  at  this  point  some  one  says :  "  That  is 
all  very  well  as  a  matter  of  philosophy;  but,  Mr.  Garfield,  you 
probably  have  a  dollar-bill  in  your  pocket,  and  with  it  you  can 
go  out  and  buy  a  shovel,  can  you  not?  Do  you  say  that  you 
buy  it  with  something  that  has  no  value?  Does  not  every 
dollar-bill  refute  the  theory  that  you  have  offered  ?  "  Not  in 
the  least,  if  you  will  follow  me  a  moment  further. 

What  is  paper  money,  so  called?  Is  it  money?  It  is  a  title 
to  money,  a  deed  for  money,  but  it  is  not  money.  A  farmer 
has  a  deed  for  his  hundred  acres  of  land ;  is  that  the  land  ?  It 
is  paper,  but  it  is  his  evidence  that  he  owns  the  farm.  Suppose 
you  want  to  buy  his  farm ;  you  look  at  his  deed ;  the  first  ques 
tion  you  raise  is,  Is  it  genuine  or  counterfeit?  If  you  find  that 
it  is  genuine,  that  it  has  been  issued  by  the  requisite  authority, 
you  still  have  another  question.  You  see  it  calls  for  one  hun 
dred  acres  of  land ;  but  you  send  a  surveyor  out,  he  traces  the 
line,  he  takes  the  angles,  he  makes  the  measurements ;  and 
when  he  has  come  back  and  declared  that  there  is  in  the  within 
described  boundaries  one  hundred  acres  of  land,  then  the  deed 
is  the  evidence  of  all  that  it  pretends  to  be.  If  he  finds  no  land 
at  all  behind  the  deed,  he  must  be  content  with  a  "fiat"  farm. 
Again,  suppose  the  surveyor  finds  land  behind  the  deed,  but 
declares  that  there  is  only  ninety-nine  acres,  what  do  the  figures 
or  the  deed  amount  to  in  the  face  of  the  fact?  Suppose  the 
farmers  in  your  agricultural  districts  should  say,  "We  are  in 
distress ;  our  great  need  is  more  land ;  if  we  had  more  land,  we 
should  get  on  better  with  our  affairs;  now  let  us  get  a  law  through 
the  General  Court  that  every  man  may  surrender  his  deed,  and 
have  a  new  one  written  with  two  acres  in  place  of  one !  " 

When  you  can  enlarge  your  farm  by  changing  the  figures  in 
your  deeds ;  when  your  dairy-maid  can  make  more  butter  and 
cheese  by  watering  the  milk ;  when  you  can  have  more  cloth 
by  decreasing  your  yardstick  one  half;  when  you  can  sell  more 
tons  of  merchandise  by  shortening  your  pound  one  half, — 
then,  and  not  until  then,  you  can  increase  the  value  of  your 
property  or  labor  by  decreasing  your  standard  of  values. 

But  some  one  meets  me  with  this :  "  After  all,  whatever  you 
may  say,  your  paper  dollar  will  pay  a  debt,  no  matter  how 


HONEST  MONEY.  599 

much  depreciation  may  have  smitten  it ;  and  what  we  want  is  a 
money  that  will  pay  debts."  There  is  an  element  of  truth  in 
this  suggestion,  and  it  touches  the  very  core  of  the  evil  of  a 
depreciated  paper  currency. 

A  currency  that  is  not  at  par,  and  is  a  legal  tender,  has  these 
two  qualities  in  it,  —  one  its  debt-paying  power,  the  other  its 
purchasing  power;  and  wherever  these  two  values  disagree, 
you  notice  the  utmost  confusion  and  injustice  in  the  business 
of  life,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  If  the  debt-paying 
power  and  the  purchasing  power  of  your  money  are  not  equal, 
you  are  in  a  confusion  which  can  never  be  healed  except  by 
making  them  equal.  They  have  been  made  unequal  by  the 
operations  of  the  law.  By  the  law  alone  can  their  equality  be 
restored.  I  suppose,  by  the  brute  force  of  Congressional  votes 
and  Presidential  approval,  if  we  should  be  wicked  enough 
to  do  it,  we  might  wipe  out  all  debts  by  a  universal  law  of 
bankruptcy,  which  declared  that  on  a  certain  day  all  debts 
should  be  counted  as  cancelled.  But  the  man  who  would 
counsel  that,  or  would  counsel  the  making  of  a  paper  dollar 
that  would  accomplish  the  same  thing,  would  be  denounced  by 
every  fair-minded  man  in  the  world  as  a  villain ;  and  if  that  is 
what  the  Greenback  movement  means,  we  dare  our  enemies 
to  face  it. 

Now,  fellow-citizens,  we  go  back  to  the  primary  question  in 
this  fight.  I  affirm  against  all  opposers,  that  the  highest  and 
foremost  present  duty  of  the  American  people  is  to  complete 
the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  first  of  all,  because  the 
sacred  faith  of  this  republic  is  pledged  to  resumption ;  and  if 
it  were  never  so  hard  to  do  it,  if  the  burdens  were  ten  times 
greater  than  they  are,  this  nation  dare  not  look  in  the  face  of 
men  and  God  and  break  its  plighted  word.  It  is  a  fearful 
thing  for  one  man  to  stand  up  in  the  face  of  his  brother  man 
and  refuse  to  keep  his  pledge;  but  it  is  a  forty-five  million 
times  worse  thing  for  a  nation  to  do  it.  It  breaks  the  main 
spring  of  faith ;  it  unsettles  all  security,  it  disturbs  all  values, 
and  it  puts  the  life  of  the  nation  in  peril  for  all  time  to  come. 
If  we  should  break  our  faith  now,  who  would  trust  the  republic 
again  in  the  hour  of  danger?  If  we  break  our  faith  now,  we 
should  not  deserve  to  be  saved  when  we  are  again  in  peril. 

I  am  almost  ashamed  to  give  any  other  reason  for  resump 
tion  than  the  one  I  have  given.     It  is  so  complete  that  no  other 


600  HONEST  MONEY. 

is  needed  ;  but  there  is  another  almost  as  strong.  If  there  were 
no  moral  obligations  resting  upon  the  nation,  if  there  were  no 
public  faith  pledged  to  it,  I  affirm  that  the  resumption  of  spe 
cie  payments  is  demanded  by  every  interest  of  business  in  this 
country.  It  is  so  imperatively  demanded,  that  it  can  be  demon 
strated  that  every  honest  interest  in  America  will  be  strength 
ened  and  bettered  thereby. 

Fellow-citizens,  those  who  oppose  it  undertake  to  divert  us 
by  saying  that  the  resumption  of  specie  payments  will  help  the 
rich,  but  hurt  the  poor.  I  deny  the  allegation.  Resumption 
will  help  all;  but  I  affirm  that  it  will  especially,  and  in  far 
greater  measure  than  any  other,  help  the  laboring  people  of 
the  United  States.  How?  Let  us  see  how. 

In  departing  from  the  old  coin  standard  as  we  did,  until  our 
dollars  fell  to  thirty-eight  cents,  all  prices  were  increased,  but 
they  were  not  all  increased  alike.  First,  the  commodities  of 
quick  trade  went  up  in  price  one  by  one ;  then  articles  of 
necessity  went  up  in  price ;  and,  according  to  the  universal 
law,  the  price  of  labor  went  up  last.  It  was  the  last  to  rise, 
[A  voice,  "  It  was  the  first  to  fall !  "]  and  when  it  did  rise,  it 
did  not  rise  so  high  as  the  cost  of  living  rose ;  and  in  the  wild 
est  days  of  inflation,  when  the  increase  of  wages  was  fifty  per 
cent,  the  increase  in  the  cost  of  living  was  seventy-five  per 
cent,  so  that,  while  inflation  increased  the  laborer's  wages,  it 
increased  the  cost  of  living  still  more.  It  nominally  gave  him 
more,  but  in  fact  gave  him  less.  That  was  what  inflation  did. 
And  now  some  one  in  the  audience  anticipated  me  wisely. 
When  prices  fall,  labor  comes  down  first.  That  is  true.  An 
uncertain  currency  that  goes  up  and  down  hits  the  laborer,  and 
hits  him  hard.  It  helps  him  last,  and  hurts  him  first.  There 
fore,  of  all  men  in  America,  the  man  who  should  demand  the 
resumption  of  specie  payments  and  the  fixing  and  making  cer 
tain  the  standard  of  value,  is  the  laboring  man,  who  can  only 
suffer  when  that  standard  is  departed  from.  The  capitalist 
can  take  advantage  of  the  market ;  if  he  has  anything  to  buy, 
he  is  probably  not  compelled  to  buy  it  to-day,  but  can  wait 
until  the  market  price  is  low.  If  he  has  anything  to  sell, 
he  is  not  compelled  to  sell  it  to-day,  but  can  wait  until  the 
price  is  up,  and  sell  it  at  the  best.  Not  so  with  the  laboring 
man  who  goes  to  market  with  just  one  thing  to  sell,  and  that  is 
his  day's  work.  He  must  sell  it  to-day,  at  the  price  to-day,  or 


HONEST  MONEY.  6oi 

it  will  be  wholly  lost.  What  he  needs  to  buy  he  must  buy  now, 
when  necessity  compels  him.  He  cannot,  like  the  capitalist, 
dodge  the  call  of  inflation  or  contraction,  but  pays  in  the  day's 
standard  of  value ;  and  so  it  strikes  him  both  ways,  and  strikes 
him  hard.  What,  therefore,  the  laboring  man  needs,  is  this, — 
that  when  he*  has  earned  his  money,  he  shall  get  it  in  a  cur 
rency  that  will  keep  over  night. 

In  the  present  stage  of  the  controversy,  resumption  does  not 
mean  the  destruction,  but  the  betterment,  of  our  greenback  cur 
rency.  It  means  that  the  laboring  man's  dollar  shall  be  made 
better  and  better  and  better,  until  it  is  as  good  as  the  best  dol 
lar  in  the  world,  and  there  we  stop.  We  fought  the  great  war 
of  arms  to  make  all  men  equal  before  the  law ;  we  fight  this 
battle  of  finance  to  make  all  our  dollars  equal  before  the  law, 
whether  they  be  silver,  or  gold,  or  paper.  We  believe  in  a  foot 
that  measures  just  twelve  inches, —  no  less,  no  more  ;  in  a  pound 
that  weighs  just  sixteen  ounces  avoirdupois,  —  no  less,  no  more ; 
and  in  a  dollar,  of  whatever  it  is  made,  that  is  worth,  either  as 
an  evidence  of  debt  or  as  a  reality,  just  one  hundred  cents,  —  no  ' 
less,  no  more.  We  have  $1,100,000,000  of  trade  with  the  Old 
World,  and  every  dollar  of  that  trade  is  measured  by  the  stan 
dard  of  coin.  We  want  a  dollar  so  good  that  it  will  measure  all 
that  trade,  and  will  be  as  good  as  the  dollar  across  the  water. 

[Here  Mr.  Garfield  discussed  the  non-exportability  of  the  greenback 
currency.  See  speech  on  "  Currency  and  the  Banks,"  delivered  June 
15,  iSyo.1  He  concluded  this  branch  of  the  discussion  by  saying,  "We 
want  a  currency  that  can  walk  like  an  American  all  over  the  world."] 

A  little  while  ago  somebody  asked  about  the  national  banks,  — 
a  more  difficult  question.  Senator  Thurman  and  many  leading 
Democrats  in  the  West  have  confined  themselves  chiefly  to  the 
abolition  of  the  national  banks,  and  the  issue  of  $324,000,000 
of  greenbacks  to  take  the  place  of  their  notes.  Now,  that  is  a 
debatable  question,  and  as  you  are  reasonable  men,  let  us  de 
bate  it.  If  that  plan  were  just  as  good,  I  would  be  in  favor  of 
it ;  if  it  were  better,  I  would  be  still  more  strongly  in  favor  of 
it.  What  are  the  objections? 

My  first  objection  is,  that  the  proposition  is  a  flat  violation 
of  the  pledge,  promise,  and  faith  of  this  nation  that  it  would 
never  increase  the  greenbacks  above  $400,000,000.  If  you 
make  this  change,  you  will  exceed  that  volume. 

1  Vol.  I.  p.   580. 


602  HONEST  MONEY. 

Suppose  that  trouble  be  got  over;  suppose  there  were  no 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  public  faith;  I  have  another  objec 
tion  to  it.  If  you  issue  $324,000,000  more  of  greenbacks  on 
top  of  the  $346,000,000  now  out,  you  make  redemption  impos 
sible  ;  and  all  who  believe  in  the  resumption  of  specie  payments 
ought  to  oppose  it  for  that  reason.  Why  do  I  say  that?  The 
United  States  treasury  can  now  resume  specie  payments  on  the 
promised  day.  It  could  do  it  sooner.  In  1875  we  were  told  we 
could  not  resume;  that  we  could  not  get  the  gold  to  resume; 
that  the  moment  we  tried  to  accumulate  the  coin,  it  would  in 
crease  the  value  of  the  coin,  and  decrease  the  value  of  the  cur 
rency  ;  but  in  the  face  of  all  such  Cassandra  prophecies,  we  have 
accumulated  and  have  to-day  in  the  treasury,  unappropriated 
for  any  other  purpose,  $135,000,000  of  coin  waiting.  [A  voice, 
"We  lose  the  interest  of  it."]  Certainly  we  lose  the  interest, 
but  it  costs  something  to  be  honest. 

In  the  next  place,  while  that  coin  has  been  accumulating,  the 
value  of  our  greenback  has  been  going  up  constantly,  from  thir 
teen  per  cent  discount  when  the  law  was  passed,  until  to-day,  in 
the  markets  of  America,  our  greenback  is  worth  ninety-nine  and 
three-fourths  cents  on  the  dollar.  What  coin  we  have  will  cer 
tainly  be  enough  to  complete  that  work ;  but  if  it  were  not,  we 
can  readily  accumulate,  under  the  law,  $5,000,000  a  month  more 
on  top  of  that,  until  the  day  of  resumption  comes ;  so  that  we 
are  perfectly  able  to  resume,  under  the  law  as  it  now  stands. 
There  are  the  national  banks,  with  $324,000,000  of  notes  out. 
They  are  compelled  to  march  abreast  of  us  in  the  work  of 
resuming  specie  payments.  The  two  thousand  national  banks 
are  all  harnessed  to  the  car  of  resumption,  and  when  we  re 
sume  they  must  resume.  If  you  abolish  them,  you  take  away 
their  help ;  you  put  the  whole  weight  of  the  $670,000,000  on 
the  treasury,  and  break  it  down. 

There  is  another  objection  that  I  have  to  abolishing  the  banks 
and  substituting  greenbacks  for  their  notes.  Now  the  national 
banks  pay  a  good  round  share  of  the  taxes,  and  I  am  glad  of 
it;  they  ought  to  pay  it.  Since  their  organization  they  have 
paid  over  $200,000,000  of  taxes  to  the  States  and  the  nation. 
Last  year  they  paid  $16,000,000  of  tax.  $9,000,000  to  the 
States  and  $7,000,000  to  the  nation.  Their  stock  is  taxed  by 
the  States,  their  circulation  and  their  deposits  are  taxed  by  the 
nation,  and  a  man  who  holds  their  notes  on  the  day  of  assess- 


HONEST  MONEY.  603 

ment  is  taxed  upon  them.  How  about  the  greenbacks?  There 
are  $346,000,000  of  greenbacks  that  escape  taxation.  A  rich 
man  can  gather  them  in  on  the  day  of  assessment  and  escape 
taxation.  The  substitution  you  talk  of  would  lose  $16,000,000 
of  taxes  a  year  to  the  States  and  the  nation,  and  put  $324,000,000 
out  of  the  reach  of  taxation ;  a  thing  fairly  to  be  complained  of, 
and  I  object  to  it  for  that  reason. 

I  object  to  the  substitution  for  still  another  reason.  The 
national  bank  notes,  as  they  now  stand,  are  the  only  part  of 
our  financial  machinery  that  gears  the  supply  of  currency  to 
the  laws  of  supply  and  demand.  Abolish  them,  and  put  out 
$324,000,000  of  greenbacks,  and  the  volume  of  your  currency 
depends  upon  the  votes  of  Congress.  You  might  as  well  hope 
to  regulate  the  movements  of  the  solar  system  by  acts  of  Con 
gress,  as  to  regulate  the  necessary  volume  of  currency  in  the 
same  way.  No  men  are  wise  enough  to  do  it,  and  if  they  were, 
dare  you  trust  so  delicate  a  thing  as  that  to  partisan  votes  in  the 
Senate  and  House?  If  you  have  so  much  faith  as  that  in  Con 
gress,  your  faith  exceeds  mine. 

There  is  another  thing  about  it,  fellow-citizens.  If  you  abol 
ish  the  national  banking  system,  you  leave  us  a  mere  group 
of  brokers'  shops,  —  nothing  more  than  that.  The  banking 
business  of  America,  besides  the  circulation  of  notes,  is  as 
necessary  to  the  trade  of  the  United  States  as  the  railroads'to 
transportation.  Do  you  know,  fellow-citizens,  that  the  modern 
device  for  avoiding  the  use  of  large  amounts  of  money  is  the 
bank?  What  proportion  of  business  is  carried  on  in  actual 
money?  In  England,  they  tell  us,  only  five  per  cent  of  the 
trade  is  carried  on  by  the  actual  use  of  money ;  ninety-five  per 
cent  by  drafts,  checks,  and  commercial  bills,  and  these  are 
handled  by  the  banks.  In  this  country,  not  less  than  ninety 
per  cent  of  our  business  is  done  in  that  way.  Would  you  have 
shaving-shops,  irresponsible  and  independent,  or  the  present 
system,  that  holds  them  all  in  the  grip  and  control  of  the  law? 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that,  while  it  may  not  be  perfect,  the 
present  national  banking  system  is  the  most  perfect  this  country 
ever  knew ;  and  to  abolish  it  is  to  go  back  to  the  wretched  old 
system  that  prevailed  before  the  war.  How  was  it  then?  No 
man  dared  take  paper  money  without  studying  the  Bank  Re 
porter  by  the  hour.  No  merchant  in  the  West  dared  start  East 
until  he  had  culled  his  currency,  and  picked  out  the  best  bills 


604  HONEST  MONEY. 

to  carry  to  New  York  or  Boston.  Money  was  not  good  out  of 
the  limits  of  the  State  in  half  the  States  of  the  Union.  How 
many  men  here  have  in  the  last  six  months  taken  out  their 
pocket-books  to  see  what  banks  their  money  was  on?  You 
do  not  care  whether  it  is  on  a  bank  in  Maine  or  California, 
Ohio  or  Massachusetts;  for  the  bank-note  has  the  stamp  and 
symbol  of  the  government  upon  it,  and  is  as  national  as  the 
flag.  And  you  know  that  behind  every  dollar-bill  is  one  hun 
dred  and  ten  cents  locked  up  in  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States  to  secure  you  against  loss.  You  do  not  care  if  the  bank 
is  broken,  wound  up,  gone;  you  do  not  care  if  one  hundred 
pounds  of  nitro-glycerine  has  blown  bank  and  officers  to  atoms, 
—  your  dollar  is  secure.  We  do  not  propose  to  fight  this  battle 
in  fear  of  the  cry  against  the  banks  on  the  one  hand,  or  in  the 
fear  of  the  banks  on  the  other,  for  either  would  be  cowardice ; 
but  we  propose  to  fight  it  on  the  square  issue  of  justice  and 
good  sense.  If  we  cannot  win  your  votes  by  that  plan,  then  we 
must  be  content  to  be  right  and  alone. 

The  third  point  I  want  to  make  is,  that  resumption  has  now 
so  nearly  come  that  it  would  be  a  crime  to  stop  it.  Whatever 
evils  anybody  has  prophesied  as  coming  from  resumption,  what 
ever  hardships  resumption  was  expected  to  bring,  have  been 
endured  already;  the  agony  is,  in  fact,  over.  We  are  almost 
in  =  reach  of  shore.  We  have  been  tossed  these  many  long 
years  upon  the  stormy  and  uncertain  sea  of  irredeemable  paper 
money.  It  has  crippled  our  industries,  shaken  our  confidence, 
robbed  our  poor  men,  blasted  our  hopes ;  it  has  made  it  possi 
ble  for  $1,000,000,000  to  be  invested  for  years  in  the  miserable, 
wretched  business  of  gambling  in  gold.  Now  resumption  ends 
the  business  of  gold  gambling  forever,  for  it  existed  only  in  the 
difference  in  value  between  paper  and  gold.  After  all  we  have 
suffered,  we  are  now  like  a  bold  and  sturdy  swimmer  almost 
ashore.  Out  of  the  tempest,  out  of  the  night,  out  of  the  storm 
and  danger  of  the  deep,  the  republic  is  just  within  a  stroke  of 
the  land.  One  more  stroke,  and  her  feet  will  stand  upon  the 
rock.  And  the  enemies  of  resumption  would  come  now  and 
plunge  her  back  into  the  uncertainty  of  night,  upon  a  shore 
less,  bottomless  sea,  wretched  and  forlorn !  In  the  name  of 
sweet  peace,  in  the  name  of  returning  prosperity,  in  the  name 
of  the  sufferings  we  have  endured,  I  demand,  the  Republican 
party  demands,  all  lovers  of  honest  money  demand,  that  the 


HONEST  MONE  Y.  605 

progress  of  resumption  shall  not  be  hindered.     Nothing  can 
now  hinder  it  but  the  brute  force  of  hostile  legislation. 

Fellow-citizens,  we  have  passed  through  a  long  period  of 
darkness,  but  in  the  darkness  there  have  been  some  compensa 
tions.  Men  are  telling  us  that  there  were  good  times  from  1865 
to  1873.  Were  there?  What  was  happening  in  those  years? 
From  1865  to  1873  this  country  was  running  in  debt  at  a  rate 
almost  never  known  before.  I  do  not  mean  the  nation  as  a 
nation,  but  the  nation  as  a  people.  Do  you  know  that  even 
in  our  trade  with  Europe  we  bought  $1,000,000,000,  —  yes, 
$1,047,000,000  more  of  merchandise  than  we  sent  back  in  ex 
change  for  it?  Our  people  as  individuals  incurred  a  foreign 
debt  in  that  short  time  of  more  than  $1,000,000,000.  And 
while  we  were  running  in  debt  by  our  purchases  abroad,  we 
were  also  running  in  debt  at  home.  It  was  the  speculative 
fever  that  inflation  always  brings.  We  were  building  railroads 
on  credit;  State,  county,  and  municipal  debts  were  increas 
ing.  The  debts  of  this  country,  the  individual  and  corporate 
debts,  far  outweighed  the  national  debt.  Since  the  calamity 
of  1873  struck  us,  we  have  been  quietly  and  steadily  paying 
our  debts.  In  those  five  years  we  have  sold  abroad  over 
$500,000,000  more  of  property  than  we  have  bought  from 
there.  The  year  just  closed  brought  us  $257,000,000  for  what 
we  sold  more  than  we  paid  for  what  we  bought.  We  are  pay 
ing  debts,  we  are  clearing  away  incumbrances.  All  that  this 
country  needs  is  that  the  black  shadow  of  Congress  shall  not 
fall  upon  it  and  blast  it.  Old  Diogenes  was  right  when  he 
asked  Alexander  to  ride  out  of  his  sunshine. 

They  say  we  have  made  the  hard  times  by  contraction.  I 
deny  that.  It  is  false  in  fact  and  it  is  false  in  theory.  [A 
voice,  "  Prove  it."]  Well,  sir,  I  will  prove  it.  On  the  first  day 
of  September,  1873,  there  was  more  paper  currency  afloat  in 
this  country  than  there  had  been  any  day  for  six  years,  and 
the  panic  struck  us  when  we  were  at  the  highest  flood-tide  of 
paper  currency. 

And  now,  fellow-citizens,  allow  me  to  call  your  attention,  in 
conclusion,  to  another  phase  of  this  question.  I  have  been 
speaking  thus  far  on  the  hard,  dry  facts  of  financial  science. 
I  have  been  trying  to  get  at  the  truth  as  well  as  I  might.  We 
have  now  reached  a  period  when  all  these  questions  have  struck 
the  public  mind  with  new  force,  and  we  should  go  down  to  the 


6o6  HONEST  MONEY. 

bottom  of  them  and  discuss  them  before  the  people.  No  dis 
cussion  of  the  Presidential  policy  of  pacification,  or  civil  service 
reform,  or  of  anything,  however  bad  or  however  good,  will  meet 
this  issue.  We  must  lay  aside  all  embarrassments,  and  meet  this 
question  face  to  face  with  the  people  who  are  willing  to  be  taught. 
If  the  people  will  hear  the  truth,  and  I  know  they  will,  y^u  can 
fearlessly  appeal  to  their  intelligence  and  their  conscience. 

But,  in  the  mean  time,  there  are  other  elements  in  this  case,  — 
not  the  mere  elements  of  intellectual  antagonisms,  but  worse 
elements  behind.  If  some  man  should  stand  on  this  historic 
platform  and  propose  to  prove  to  this  great  audience  beyond 
controversy  that  this  republic  of  ours  has  failed,  and  must  go 
to  ruin,  he  would  prove  the  most  awful  fact  that  could  be  con 
ceived  by  an  American  mind.  The  next  calamity  to  overturn 
ing  the  universe  of  God  would  be  the  fall  of  this  republic ;  and 
yet,  —  not  in  this  country  I  hope,  —  but  if  a  vote  were  taken 
to-day  by  the  intelligent  people  of  Europe,  millions  would  vote 
that  the  American  republic  must  fall. 

Let  us  contemplate  that  for  a  moment.  One  of  the  ablest 
writers  that  England  ever  produced,  one  whose  name  is  honored 
in  America,  has  given  his  reasons  for  believing  that  the  repub 
lic  must  fall.1  This  is  Macaulay's  indictment  and  prophecy. 
I  ask  the  men  of  Boston  to  carry  it  home  and  reflect  upon  it. 
How  shall  we  answer  it?  For  myself,  with  all  my  soul  I  repel 
the  prophecy  as  false.  But  why?  I  will  detain  you  only  a 
moment  to  give  you  my  reason. 

A  few  years  ago  I  sought  to  answer  this  indictment.  My 
first  answer  was  this :  no  man  who  has  not  lived  among  us  can 
understand  one  thing  about  our  institutions ;  no  man  born  and 
reared  under  a  monarchical  government  can  understand  the  vast 
difference  between  such  governments  and  ours.  How  is  it  in 
monarchical  governments?  Their  society  is  one  series  of  caste 
upon  caste.  Down  at  the  bottom,  like  the  granite  rocks  in  the 
crust  of  the  earth,  lie  the  great  body  of  laboring  men.  Above 
them  are  the  gentry,  the  hereditary  capitalists ;  above  them, 
the  nobility ;  above  them,  royalty ;  and,  crowning  all,  the  sove 
reign  ;  —  all  impassable  barriers  of  caste. 

No  man  born  under  such  institutions  can  understand  the 
mighty  difference  between  such  a  society  and  ours.  Thank 

1  See  Macaulay's  letter,  in  the  Address  entitled  "  The  Future  of  the  Republic," 
ante,  pp.  51-53. 


HONEST  MONEY.  607 

God,  and  thank  the  fathers  of  the  republic  who  made,  and  the 
men  who  carried  out,  the  promises  of  the  Declaration,  that  in 
this  country  there  are  no  classes  with  barriers  fixed  and  im 
passable.  Here,  in  our  society,  permeated  with  the  light  of 
American  freedom,  there  is  no  American  boy,  however  poor, 
however  humble,  orphan  though  he  may  be,  who,  if  he  have 
a  clear  head,  a  true  heart,  a  strong  arm,  may  not  rise  through 
all  the  grades  of  society,  and  become  the  crown,  the  glory, 
the  pillar  of  the  state. 

Here,  there  is  no  need  for  the  Old  World  war  between  capital 
and  labor.  Here  is  no  need  of  the  explosion  of  social  order 
predicted  by  Macaulay.  All  we  need  is  the  protection  of  just 
and  equal  laws, — just  alike  to  labor  and  to  capital.  Every 
poor  man  hopes  to  lay  by  something  for  a  rainy  day,  —  hopes 
to  become  a  capitalist,  for  capital  is  only  accumulated  labor. 
Whenever  a  laborer  has  earned  one  hundred  dollars  more  than 
he  needs  for  daily  expenses,  he  becomes  to  that  extent  a  capi 
talist,  and  needs  to  be  safe  in  its  enjoyment. 

There  is  another  answer  to  Macaulay.  He  could  not  under 
stand —  no  man  can  understand  it  until  he  has  seen  it  —  the 
almost  omnipotent  power  of  our  system  of  education,  which 
teaches  our  people  how  to  be  free  by  teaching  them  to  be  in 
telligent.  But,  fellow-citizens,  who  has  read  Macaulay's  letter 
that  did  not  remember  it  a  year  ago  last  July,  when  in  ten 
great  States  of  the  Union  millions  of  American  citizens  and 
millions  of  American  property  were  in  peril  of  destruction,  - 
when  the  mob  spirit  ran  riot, — when  Pittsburg  flamed  in  ruin 
and  smoked  in  blood,  and  many  of  our  great  cities  were  in 
peril  of  destruction?  —  who  did  not  remember  the  prediction 
of  Macaulay  then,  and  did  not  anew  resolve  that  the  bloody 
track  of  the  Commune  should  have  no  pathway  on  our  shore? 

1  have  introduced  all  this  for  the  purpose  of  saying  that  be 
hind  the  element  that  now  attacks  the  public  faith,  —  behind  the 
misguided  honest  men  who  have  adopted  the  greenback  theory, 
—  behind  them,  and  preparing  the  movement,  is  Communism, 
coming  from  its  dens  in  Europe  and  this  country.  If  anybody 
thinks  I  am  an  alarmist,  let  me  read  a  sentence  to  you  which  will 
help  to  unfold  the  lesson  of  the  Maine  election  which  has  just 
taken  place.  What  I  am  about  to  read  was  printed  as  standing 
matter  for  weeks  before  the  election  in  a  public  journal  pub 
lished  in  that  State. 


6o8  HONEST  MONEY. 

"  You  see  two  men  walking  along  the  street :  one  is  a  rich  bondholder, 
and  the  other  a  ragged  tramp ;  the  rich  man  enters  the  front  door  of  his 
fine  dwelling,  the  tramp  goes  in  at  the  back  door,  demands  food  or  cloth 
ing,  and  if  it  is  not  given  to  him  he  steals  it ;  and  I  tell  you  that  tramp 
is  more  entitled  to  honor  than  the  rich  man  who  sits  in  his  luxurious 
parlor." 

The  man  who  uttered  those  words  had  just  accepted  the 
Greenback  nomination  in  one  of  the  districts  of  Maine.  And 
yesterday  he  was  elected  to  Congress.  Now  I  say  this,  to  show 
the  men  of  Massachusetts  what  this  contest  means.  We  do  not 
measure  swords  with  our  adversaries  without  knowing  what  they 
are  and  what  they  mean.  They  are  making  war  upon  the  civil 
and  industrial  order  of  our  country.  We  accept  their  challenge. 
We  invite  all  honest  men  to  the  fair  and  earnest  and  brotherly 
discussion  of  this  question.  We  believe  the  hearts  of  true 
Americans  everywhere  will  respond  to  the  right,  when  they  know 
the  right.  But  to  the  disturbers  of  law,  to  those  who  would 
break  the  peace  of  this  republic,  to  those  who  would  convert  it 
into  a  huge  anarchy,  we  say  the  true  men  of  this  Union,  who 
put  down  rebellion  in  one  place,  will  put  rebellion  down  in 
every  place.  To  the  men  who  are  misguided  and  who  have 
left  the  ranks  of  our  party,  or  of  any  party  that  is  in  favor 
of  honest  money,  we  say,  in  the  graphic  language  of  Cox  of 
New  York,  in  his  curious  telegram  to  Hewitt,  "  Reverse  yourself 
and  resume  your  judgment." 

And  now,  fellow-citizens,  standing  in  this  old  hall  consecrated 
to  Liberty  and  to  Justice,  let  us  enter  this  contest  for  honest 
money,  for  the  public  faith,  for  the  nation's  honor,  not  doubt 
ing  that  here,  as  everywhere,  the  voice  of  Massachusetts  will 
be  heard  pleading  for  the  right. 

Thanking  you  for  the  attention  with  which  you  have  honored 
me,  I  bid  you  good  night. 


SUSPENSION     AND     RESUMPTION 
OF  SPECIE   PAYMENTS. 

ADDRESS    DELIVERED    IN    CHICAGO, 
JANUARY  2,  1879. 


IN  the  long  struggle  against  inflation,  and  for  a  return  to  specie  pay 
ments,  an  important  and  honorable  part  was  borne  by  the  Honest  Money 
League,  a  confederation  of  financial  societies  scattered  over  the  country, 
and  especially  the  West.  As  the  day  fixed  by  the  law  of  1875  for 
resumption  drew  near,  the  officers  of  the  League  of  the  Northwest 
thought  it  fitting  to  mark  the  day  and  the  fact  by  a  public  meeting,  to 
be  addressed  by  some  man  of  national  reputation,  who  had  been  a  con 
sistent  and  intelligent  advocate  of  the  resumption  policy  from  the  close 
of  the  war.  This  thought  led  to  the  following  correspondence. 

"OFFICE  OF  THE  HONEST  MONEY  LEAGUE  OF  THE  NORTHWEST, 
CHICAGO,  ILL.,  December  20,  1878. 

"  To  THE  HON.  JAMES  A.  GARFIELD  :  — 

"  DEAR  SIR,  —  Having  been  appointed  at  a  recent  meeting  of  the 
Executive  Committee  of  the  Honest  Money  League  of  the  Northwest 
to  make  arrangements  to  celebrate  the  event  of  the  resumption  of  specie 
payments  by  a  public  meeting  in  the  city  of  Chicago,  we  beg  to  invite 
you  to  address  the  gentlemen  of  the  Honest  Money  League,  whom  we 
represent,  and  other  citizens  of  Chicago  and  the  Northwest,  at  such  time 
after  January  i,  1879,  as  may  be  most  agreeable  to  yourself. 
"  We  remain,  very  truly  and  respectfully,  yours, 

"M.  L.  SCUDDER,  JR.,) 
THOMAS  A.  BONES,     >•  Committee" 
THOMAS  M.  NICHOL,  ) 

"  WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  December  23,  1878. 
"  M.  L.  SCUDDER,  THOMAS  A.  BONES,  and  THOMAS  M.  NICHOL, 

Committee  Honest  Money  League :  — 

"  GENTLEMEN,  —  I  am  in  receipt  of  your  favor  of  the  2Oth  instant, 
inviting  me  to  address  a  meeting  of  the  Honest  Money  League  of  the 
VOL.  ii.  39 


610  SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION. 

Northwest,  to  be  called  for  the  celebration  of  the  '  resumption  of  specie 
payments.'     I  take  pleasure  in  accepting  your  invitation,  and  will  sug 
gest  the  evening  of  January  2,  1879,  if  agreeable  to  you. 
"  Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

"J.  A.  GARFIELD." 

In  pursuance  of  this  correspondence,  the  following  address  was  deliv 
ered  in  Farwell  Hall,  on  the  evening  of  January  2,  1879.  Notwithstand 
ing  the  night  was  the  coldest  known  in  Chicago  for  ten  years,  the  hall  was 
filled.  Judge  D.  L.  Shorey  presided,  and  the  address  was  received  with 
great  enthusiasm. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN  AND  FELLOW-CITIZENS, —  The  resump 
tion  of  specie  payments  closes  the  most  memorable 
epoch  of  our  history  since  the  birth  of  the  Union.  The  years 
1 86 1  and  1879  are  the  opposite  shores  of  that  turbulent  sea, 
whose  storms  so  seriously  threatened  with  shipwreck  the  pros 
perity,  the  honor,  and  the  life  of  the  nation.  But  the  horrors 
and  dangers  of  the  middle  passage  have  at  last  been  mastered, 
and  out  of  the  night  and  tempest  the  republic  has  landed  on 
the  shore  of  this  new  year,  bringing  with  it  union  and  liberty, 
honor  and  peace. 

We  have  met  to-night  to  celebrate  the  close  of  the  war.  Bat 
tles  are  never  the  end  of  war ;  for  the  dead  must  be  buried,  and 
the  cost  of  the  conflict  must  be  paid. 

The  Union  men  of  1861  enlisted  for  the  whole  war.  They 
served  on  the  field  of  battle  until  the  last  rebel  flag  went  down 
in  surrender ;  they  served  in  the  field  of  legislation,  and  at  the 
ballot-box,  until  the  last  slave  was  free,  and  the  last  of  the 
seceding  States  re-entered  the  circle  of  the  Union ;  they  served 
in  the  public  councils  until  the  perils  of  our  foreign  relations 
were  ended  by  honorable  arbitration ;  they  have  served  during 
the  fierce  trials  of  the  public  faith ;  and  they  will  not  be  mus 
tered  out  until  the  equal  rights  of  all  citizens  are  acknowledged 
and  secured,  —  until  the  pension  of  the  last  disabled  soldier  of 
the  Union  is  faithfully  paid,  and  the  last  war  obligation  of  the 
government  is  honorably  redeemed. 

If  the  resumption  now  declared  by  law  be  maintained  against 
all  assaults,  then  indeed,  so  far  as  our  finances  are  concerned, 
the  war  for  the  Union  is  ended,  the  victory  is  complete.  Will 
our  great  sovereign,  the  people  of  all  these  States,  make  the 


SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION.  6n 

decree  irreversible?  Will  resumption  be  maintained?  Believ 
ing  that,  in  the  long  run,  the  matured  and  deliberate  judgment 
of  this  nation  is  honest  and  intelligent,  I  answer,  Yes,  it  will 
be  maintained ;  and  for  two  reasons.  First,  because  national 
honesty,  good  government,  and  the  prosperity  of  all  our  people 
demand  it ;  and  second,  because  we  are  able  to  maintain  it.  The 
defence  of  these  positions  will  be  the  theme  of  this  address. 

To  the  thoughtful  business-men  assembled  here  to-night, 
whose  genius  and  industry  have  made  this  city  the  great  com 
mercial  centre  of  the  Northwest,  I  need  not  argue  the  propo 
sition  that  the  sanctity  of  contracts  is  the  foundation  of  all 
industrial  prosperity.  In  the  complex  and  delicately  adjusted 
relations  of  modern  society,  confidence  in  promises  lawfully 
made  is  the  life-blood  of  trade  and  commerce.  It  is  the  vital 
air  which  labor  breathes.  It  is  the  light  which  shines  on  the 
pathway  of  prosperity.  The  betrayal  of  one  great  business 
trust  by  a  single  private  citizen  may  beggar  a  thousand  fam 
ilies,  and  paralyze  the  industry  of  half  a  city.  An  act  of  bad 
faith  on  the  part  of  a  State  or  municipal  corporation,  like 
poison  in  the  blood,  will  transmit  its  curse  to  succeeding 
generations.  Examples  of  this  are  not  wanting.  An  eminent 
citizen  of  Mississippi,  a  gentleman  of  national  reputation,  re 
cently  declined  an  important  and  honorable  business  mission 
to  Europe,  in  behalf  of  the  Southern  Board  of  Trade,  on  the 
ground  that  his  usefulness  would  be  seriously  impaired  by  the 
fact  that  Europeans  still  charge  Mississippi  with  financial  bad 
faith  in  her  legislation  of  1851.  Thus,  a  single  act  of  repudia 
tion  has  cast  its  blighting  shadow  across  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
still  clouds  the  prosperity  of  a  great  State,  and  cripples  the  in 
fluence  of  its  worthiest  citizens. 

But  bad  faith  on  the  part  of  an  individual,  a  city,  or  even  a 
State,  is  a  small  evil  in  comparison  with  the  calamities  which 
follow  bad  faith  on  the  part  of  a  sovereign  government.  The 
United  States  is  still  a  debtor  nation,  mainly,  it  is  true,  a  debtor 
to  our  own  people,  but  also,  to  a  great  extent,  a  debtor  to  the 
people  of  other  nations.  We  are  still  in  the  market,  soliciting 
loans  with  which  to  refund  our  great  debt  at  a  lower  rate  of 
interest.  Every  dollar  thus  refunded  reduces  the  annual  bur 
den  of  interest ;  and,  to  that  extent,  the  government  ceases  to 
be  a  competitor  of  private  citizens  in  securing  loans.  Any  act 
of  bad  faith,  therefore,  tends*  to  prevent  refunding,  tends  to 


6i2  SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION. 

prevent  the  reduction  of  the  public  burdens,  and  keeps  up  the 
rate  of  interest,  both  public  and  private.  Our  bonds  have  be 
come  the  basis  of  private  interests,  involving  hundreds  of  mil 
lions  of  dollars.  The  vast  aggregate  of  investments  by  people 
of  small  means  in  savings  banks,  in  fire,  marine,  and  life  insur 
ance,  and  the  estates  of  thousands  of  widows  and  orphans,  de 
pend  largely  for  their  value  upon  the  security  and  steady  value 
of  government  obligations ;  and  any  law  or  policy  which  tends 
to  depreciate  these  obligations  is  communicated  through  all 
the  channels  of  private  business,  carrying  loss  and  disaster  to 
millions  of  citizens. 

At  the  risk  of  repeating  what  may  be  familiar  to  every  one, 
let  us  consider  the  relation  of  the  greenback  to  the  public  faith. 
Whatever  new  theories  of  currency  may  have  sprung  up  since 
1862,  it  will  not  be  denied,  as  a  fact  of  history  and  law,  that  the 
greenback  was  a  loan  without  interest,  forced  upon  the  people 
by  the  overmastering  necessities  of  the  war.  Its  issue  as  a 
legal  tender  for  private  debts  was  acknowledged  at  the  time  to 
be  an  act  of  doubtful  constitutionality,  and  justified  only  on  the 
plea  of  inexorable  necessity.  The  measure  was  adopted  with 
great  hesitation  by  a  small  majority,  and  against  the  protest  and 
warning  of  many  able  and  patriotic  Senators  and  Representatives. 
The  law  was  acknowledged  by  its  supporters  to  be  a  radical  de 
parture  from  the  traditions,  the  theory,  and  the  practice  of  our 
government.  Its  strongest  supporters  acknowledged  the  great 
danger  of  the  experiment,  and  threw  around  it  every  safeguard 
against  the  evils  it  would  inflict.  They  embodied  in  the  law, 
and  stamped  upon  the  face  of  every  greenback,  this  solemn 
promise,  "  The  United  States  will  pay."  They  provided  a 
method  by  which  the  notes  should  be  funded  and  ultimately 
redeemed.  They  did  not  propose  to  create  a  permanent  sys 
tem  of  paper  money.  They  declared  that  the  measure  was  to 
be  a  temporary  one,  —  "  the  medicine  of  the  Constitution,  and 
not  its  daily  bread."  They  asserted,  again  and  again,  that  the 
money  of  the  Constitution  was  coin,  not  paper.  The  greenback 
itself  was  a  promise  to  pay  coin ;  but  the  date  of  payment  was 
not  fixed.  It  was  a  government  due-bill ;  and  the  only  excuse 
in  morals  or  in  law  for  not  paying  it  on  demand  was  inability 
to  pay.  The  moment  the  government  was  able  to  pay,  refusal 
became  dishonor,  and  reproduced  its  injustice  in  every  business 
interest,  public  and  private. 


SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION.  613 


But  the  unredeemed  greenback  produced  evils  far  greater 
than  those  which  resulted  from  the  ordinary  refusal  to  pay  a 
debt.  Besides  being  a  debt,  it  was  a  legal-tender  currency,  and 
its  excessive  volume  expelled  real  money  from  all  the  channels 
of  internal  trade,  destroyed  the  old  measure  of  value,  and  sub 
stituted  in  its  place  a  standard  whose  value  fluctuated  every 
day  and  every  hour  during  the  seventeen  years  of  suspension. 
On  account  of  its  twofold  character  as  debt  and  currency,  the 
value  of  the  greenback  was  changed  by  every  military  and 
political  event  which  affected  the  fortunes  of  the  war.  The 
march  of  a  hostile  army  to  the  near  neighborhood  of  the  na 
tional  Capitol,  in  1864,  reduced  the  market  value  of  the  green 
back  forty  per  cent  in  a  single  week.  The  same  year  a  futile 
attempt  of  Congress  t®  abolish  the  premium  on  gold,  by  a  penal 
law,  caused  an  equally  violent  fluctuation.  At  first  the  green 
back  was  received  at  par  with  coin ;  but  later  every  increase  of 
issue  reduced  its  market  value.  In  1864  the  volume  was  in 
creased  one  hundred  and  ninety  millions,  and  the  coin  value  of 
the  whole  mass  became  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  millions 
less  than  before  the  increase.  Through  a  series  of  innumerable 
and  fitful  fluctuations,  it  fell  from  par  to  thirty-eight  cents  on 
the  dollar,  reaching  its  lowest  point  on  the  5th  of  July,  1864.  By 
a  series  of  changes  equally  irregular,  it  has  returned,  through 
an  ascending  scale  of  fifteen  years,  to  par. 

No  arithmetic  can  compute  the  injustice  and  loss  which  these 
fluctuations  have  inflicted  upon  the  people  and  business  of  this 
country.  The  chief  mischief  resulted  from  two  unequal  and 
varying  qualities  of  the  greenback  as  a  currency,  —  its  debt- 
paying  and  its  purchasing  power.  The  first  was  arbitrarily 
fixed  by  Congress  at  one  hundred  cents  on  the  dollar;  but  the 
second  was  controlled  by  laws  which  no  human  legislation  can 
set  aside,  —  the  laws' of  value;  and  the  value  of  the  greenback 
as  a  purchasing  power  suffered  all  the  changes  of  the  market. 
In  July,  1864,  a  citizen  who  had  loaned  his  neighbor  a  hun 
dred  dollars  in  coin  three  years  before  was  compelled  by  law  to 
accept  as  a  discharge  of  the  debt  a  handful  of  paper  notes 
which  he  could  purchase  for  thirty-eight  dollars  in  coin.  That 
is,  the  same  note  which  paid  a  debt  of  one  hundred  cents 
would  buy  in  the  market  only  thirty-eight  cents'  worth  of  mer 
chandise  valued  in  real  money.  This  difference  between  its 
debt-paying  power  and  its  purchasing  power  carried  confusion 


614  SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION. 

and  injustice  into  every  department  of  business.  During  the 
whole  period  of  depreciation,  the  creditor  was  wronged  by 
under-payment ;  and  during  the  whole  period  of  appreciation, 
the  debtor  was  wronged  by  being  compelled  to  make  over 
payment.  During  the  seventeen  years  of  suspension  the  pay 
ment  of  every  debt  inflicted  a  wrong,  either  upon  the  creditor 
or  the  debtor;  and  thus  the  whole  machinery  of  credit  was 
converted  into  an  engine  of  injustice.  This  will  always  happen 
when  the  two  functions  of  currency  are  of  unequal  value. 

The  first  great  opportunity  for  putting  an  end  to  these  evils 
occurred  soon  after  the  close  of  the  war.  Probably  at  no  other 
time  in  our  history  was  the  per  capita  average  of  private  indebt 
edness  so  small  as  in  1865.  Private  debts  had  been  paid  —  in 
depreciated  paper ;  the  government  had  become  the  great  bor 
rower,  and  had  borrowed  nearly  all  the  surplus  capital  of  the 
country.  Two  millions  of  hardy,  enterprising  men  had  just 
been  mustered  out  of  the  lately  hostile  armies,  and  were  ready 
again  to  become  producers  of  wealth.  It  was  a  matter  of  the 
utmost  importance  that  the  fruits  of  their  labor  should  be  safe 
when  earned,  and  that  ventures  in  business  should  be  made  as 
free  as  possible  from  violent  artificial  fluctations.  The  volume 
of  currency  then  outstanding  was  nearly  four  times  as  great  as 
it  had  ever  been  at  any  one  time  before  the  war.  It  amounted 
to  nearly  eight  hundred  millions  of  dollars  of  paper  obligations, 
in  various  forms,  endowed  with  the  quality  of  legal  tender. 
Even  in  the  midst  of  the  war,  this  volume  was  known  to  be 
far  too  great  for  financial  safety.  But  on  the  return  of  peace, 
when  the  government  ceased  to  be  a  great  consumer  and 
payments  from  the  treasury  were  reduced  sixty  per  cent  in  a 
single  year,  it  was  almost  universally  admitted  that  the  volume 
of  currency  was  greatly  in  excess  of  the  legitimate  wants  of 
business. 

Under  the  combined  influence  of  this  expanded  volume  of 
depreciated  currency  and  the  enormous  expenditures  of  the 
government,  prices  had  risen  to  an  average  of  ninety  per  cent 
above  those  of  1859-61.  They  could  not  continue  to  rise  with 
out  great  danger  to  trade,  and  still  greater  danger  to  the  inter 
ests  of  labor.  We  had  a  surplus  revenue  of  a  hundred  millions 
per  annum,  and  were  abundantly  able  to  retire,  gradually,  the 
excess  of  legal-tender  notes,  and  thus  bring  the  business  of  the 
country  safely  down  from  the  dangerous  height  to  which  war 


SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION.  615 

and  inflation  had  carried  it.  Congress  should  not  have  com 
pelled  the  new  and  aspiring  industries  of  peace  to  put  to  sea 
in  a  crazy  craft,  which  was  all  sail  and  no  anchor.  The  govern 
ment  had  itself  produced  the  conditions  in  which  business  was 
placed ;  and  to  withdraw  from  its  interference,  to  undo  the  mis 
chief  it  had  caused,  by  allowing  business  to  be  governed  by  the 
natural  laws  of  trade,  was  the  immediate  and  imperative  duty 
of  Congress.  This  situation  was  clearly  and  ably  portrayed  by 
Secretary  McCulloch,  in  his  annual  report  of  December,  1865. 
He  demonstrated  the  fact  that  we  then  stood  at  the  parting  of 
the  ways ;  that  one  path,  if  followed  with  wisdom  and  courage, 
would  lead  down  from  the  dangerous  heights  of  war  prices  to 
the  safe  level  of  solid  values  and  steady  business;  that. the  other 
would  lead  through  increased  speculation  and  still  greater  ex 
pansion  of  credits  to  inevitable  and  measureless  disaster. 

Studied  by  the  light  of  subsequent  experience,  the  Secretary's 
warnings  now  read  like  prophecy.  At  first,  his  policy  was 
generally  approved.  In  December,  1865,  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  with  but  six  dissenting  votes,  pledged  itself  to  early 
resumption  by  reducing  the  surplus  volume  of  currency.  Early 
in  1866,  a  bill  was  prepared  which  armed  the  Secretary  with  the 
requisite  authority.  But  before  the  debate  closed,  many  began 
to  shrink  from  the  responsibility  of  applying  so  heroic  a  remedy. 
Though  approving  resumption,  and  admitting  the  necessity  of 
reducing  the  volume  of  currency,  they  hesitated  to  adopt  any 
measure  which  would  reduce  prices,  and  for  the  time  being  check 
the  activity  of  trade.  The  dangers  of  inaction  and  delay  were 
clearly  pointed  out  in  debate.  The  citizens  of  Chicago  are  not 
likely  to  forget  the  clearness  and  boldness  with  which  the  Hon. 
John  Wentworth,  then  a  member  of  the  House,  predicted  the 
evils  which  inaction  in  timid  and  half-way  measures  would  in 
volve.  Late  in  the  session,  the  bill  was  passed  by  a  close  vote ; 
but  the  powers  conferred  upon  the  Secretary  were  so  restricted 
that,  before  the  remedy  could  be  fairly  applied,  the  era  of  wild 
speculation  had  begun,  and  the  current  was  soon  too  strong  to 
be  restricted.  In  less  than  two  years,  Congress,  overriding  the 
President,  prohibited  the  further  retirement  of  United  States 
notes ;  and  all  attempts  to  resume  specie  payments  and  return 
to  solid  values  were,  for  the  time,  virtually  abandoned. 

The  high  prices  of  all  home  products,  measured  as  they  were 
by  the  standard  of  depreciated  currency,  made  it  impossible  for 


616  SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION. 

our  manufacturers  to  sell  their  wares  in  any  foreign  market. 
Our  exports  fell  off  beyond  all  precedent.  Besides  the  bread- 
stuffs,  which  Europe  could  not  buy  elsewhere,  and  the  bullion 
dug  from  our  mines,  which  was  virtually  banished  by  our  laws, 
hardly  a  product  of  American  industry  crossed  the  ocean.  At 
the  same  time,  ours  was  the  most  tempting  market  in  the  world 
for  the  sale  of  foreign  merchandise.  We  were  paying  the  high 
est  prices  known  in  modern  times.  A  flood  of  foreign  fabrics 
poured  in  upon  us,  and  the  great  balance  against  us  was  paid 
in  bonds  of  the  nation,  of  the  States,  and  of  municipal  and 
private  corporations,  —  bonds  bearing  the  highest  rate  of  coin 
interest.  It  is  estimated  that  during  the  seven  years  which  pre 
ceded  the  panic  of  1873  not  less  than  one  thousand  millions  of 
American  bonds  were  sold  abroad.  Pay-day  was  pushed  out  of 
sight.  The  present  possession  of  this  vast  inflow  of  borrowed 
capital  led  its  holders  to  seek  everywhere  for  investment.  The 
surplus  revenues  of  the  National  Treasury  were  applied  to  ex 
tensive  and  extravagant  public  works.  National,  State,  muni 
cipal,  and  private  credit  was  devoted  to  the  building  of  railroads, 
and  to  magnificent  enterprises  which  fired  the  imagination  of 
our  people  and  filled  them  with  crazy  enthusiasm. 

The  saddest  and  most  curious  phenomenon  of  that  period,  and 
one  which  the  historian  will  some  day  record,  was  the  delusion 
that  we  were  then  in  the  midst  of  great  prosperity.  Visions  of 
wealth  danced  before  the  imaginations  of  enterprising  men,  and 
they  ventured  everything  in  the  wild  and  exhilarating  chase. 
They  revelled  in  the  light  of  a  conflagration  which  was  consum 
ing  their  wealth,  and  called  it  the  sunshine  of  prosperity.  They 
lost  sight  of  the  only  safe  road,  the  old,  hard,  rough  road  upon 
whose  finger-post  is  written,  "  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt 
thou  eat  bread."  The  delusion  calls  to  mind  the  remark  of 
Secretary  Chase,  that  "  an  irredeemable  legal-tender  note  was 
the  Devil  made  manifest  in  paper." 

The  fluctuations  between  the  debt-paying  and  the  purchasing 
power  of  our  currency  created  the  new  trade  of  gold  gambling. 
The  Gold  Exchange  and  the  Gold  Clearing-House  of  New  York 
will  be  remembered  in  history  as  the  Germans  remember  the 
robber  castles  of  the  Rhine,  whose  brigand  chiefs  levied  black 
mail  upon  every  passer-by.  It  was  a  business  that  never  added 
a  farthing  to  the  national  wealth,  but  in  which  everything  gained 
by  one  was  lost  by  another.  It  was  simply  betting  on  what  the 


SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION.  617 

difference  between  coin  and  paper  would  be,  and  then  employ 
ing  every  device  to  win  the  bet  by  increasing  the  fluctuation. 
In  New  York  alone,  for  many  years,  a  daily  average  of  sixty 
millions  of  capital  was  withdrawn  from  industry  and  invested  in 
this  reckless  business.  Its  fascination  spread  to  all  parts  of  the 
country.  Each  day  some  lucky  gambler  grew  suddenly  rich  by 
the  ruin  of  another.  If  these  losses  had  been  confined  to  the 
gamblers  alone,  the  evils  of  the  gold-room  would  have  been  less 
serious.  But  all  our  people  who  were  engaged  in  honest  in 
dustry,  all  producers  and  consumers  of  wealth,  were  made  its 
victims.  The  great  conspiracy  of  1869,  which  culminated  in 
"  Black  Friday,"  involved  in  ruin  thousands  of  firms  who  were 
following  legitimate  business.  As  all  our  foreign  trade  was 
measured  by  the  coin  standard,  the  business  of  every  importer 
and  exporter  of  merchandise  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  "  bulls  " 
and  "  bears  "  of  the  gold-room,  —  whose  chief  effort  was,  by 
fair  means  or  foul,  to  create  sudden  changes  in  the  price  of  gold. 
To  insure  himself  against  this  additional  risk,  the  importer  was 
compelled  to  increase  his  prices.  The  increase  was  charged 
over  to  the  jobber,  and  again  to  the  retail  dealer,  until  at  last 
its  dead  weight  fell  upon  the  consumer.  The  exporter  could 
protect  himself  against  loss  only  by  paying  lower  prices  for 
products  to  be  sent  abroad,  and  so  the  whole  enormous  cost  of 
seventeen  years  of  gold  gambling  has  been  paid  out  of  the  earn 
ings  of  the  American  people.  But  gambling  was  not  confined 
to  gold.  The  habit  engendered  by  fluctuating  currency,  which 
led  men  to  sell  what  they  did  not  own,  and  to  borrow  what 
they  sold,  was  carried  into  every  department  of  trade.  Bright, 
ambitious  young  men,  lured  from  the  farm  and  workshop, 
sought  their  fortunes  in  the  seductive  chances  of  the  stock 
board,  or  in  the  mysteries  of  "  options,"  sales,  and  "  corners" 
in  wheat.  The  population  of  many  agricultural  districts  ac 
tually  decreased.  The  cities  and  manufacturing  centres  were 
overcrowded.  Some  leading  industries,  notably  railroad-build 
ing  and  iron-making,  were  greatly  overdone.  As  speculation 
increased  and  credits  expanded,  the  cry  was  raised  that  there 
was  not  currency  enough,  —  that  the  small  measure  of  con 
traction  effected  by  Secretary  McCulloch  had  destroyed  the 
people's  money  and  crippled  their  business.  It  was  the  drunk 
ard's  cry  for  more  rum  to  steady  his  nerves,  already  shattered 
by  drink.  Nothing  could  resist  the  downward  tendency;  and 


618  SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION. 

the  wild  dance  went  on,  until  at  last,  when  no  more  could  be 
borrowed,  the  inevitable  pay-day  came,  and  with  it  the  deluge 
of  1873.  The  vast  fabric  of  municipal  and  private  debt  tottered 
and  fell,  involving  in  general  ruin  the  industries  of  our  people. 
We  have  no  means  of  knowing  the  aggregate  of  that  enormous 
indebtedness;  but  we  may  judge  something  of  its  magni 
tude  by  a  simple  example.  If  the  statistics  can  be  trusted,  the 
municipal  debts  of  a  hundred  and  twenty-six  chief  cities  of 
the  Union  increased  two  hundred  per  cent,  in  ten  years,  and 
amounted,  in  1876,  to  six  hundred  and  forty-four  million  dol 
lars  ;  and  private  debts  had  increased  in  proportion.  While 
the  catastrophe  might  have  been  prevented  in  1865,  it  was  now 
too  late  to  avert  the  blow  or  mitigate  its  severity. 

With  such  conditions,  the  crash  was  inevitable.  Its  details  of 
loss  and  suffering  need  not  be  recounted.  It  brought  innumer 
able  bankruptcies  and  losses  to  capitalists  on  every  hand ;  but 
in  the  whole  sad  chapter  of  calamities  the  laborers  of  our 
country  have  been  the  greatest  sufferers.  If  the  employer  grew 
suddenly  rich  by  speculation  in  the  period  of  expansion,  his 
workmen  did  not  share  his  riches ;  but  when  he  suffered  the 
destruction  of  his  business  by  the  crash,  they  shared  the  disaster 
by  losing  employment. 

In  the  period  of  expansion,  the  wages  of  labor  were  somewhat 
increased,  but  the  cost  of  living  increased  still  more.  When 
prices  declined,  wages  were  the  first  to  fall.  The  capitalist  can 
take  advantage  of  the  market.  If  he  has  anything  to  buy,  he  is 
not  compelled  to  buy  it  to-day;  he  can  wait  for  lower  prices. 
If  he  has  anything  to  sell,  he  is  not  compelled  to  sell  at  once, 
but  can  wait  on  the  market  and  sell  at  the  best  advantage.  Not 
so  with  the  laboring  man.  He  goes  into  the  market  with  just 
one  thing  to  sell,  —  his  day's  work.  He  must  sell  it  to-day,  at 
to-day's  prices,  or  it  will  be  wholly  lost.  What  he  needs  to  buy, 
he  must  buy  when  necessity  compels  him.  Fluctuation  in  the 
standard  of  values  is  his  worst  enemy.  It  strikes  him  both  ways, 
and  strikes  him  hard.  Therefore,  of  all  men  in  the  world,  the 
laboring  man  most  needs  a  steady  market  and  an  unvarying 
standard  of  value.  When  he  has  earned  his  wages,  he  wants  to 
be  paid  in  currency  that  will  keep  over  night, —  that  will  be  worth 
as  much  when  he  uses  it  as  it  was  when  he  received  it.  I  make 
this  plea  for  the  laboring  man,  not  on  his  account  alone,  but  on 
account  of  our  national  prosperity  as  well. 


SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION.  619 

The  hand  of  labor  has  built  this  great  metropolis,  has  created 
its  wealth,  and  to-day  supports  its  half-million  of  people.  With 
in  the  memory  of  men  who  have  hardly  passed  the  meridian  of 
life,  Chicago  was  an  Indian  trading-post,  which  sheltered  only  a 
dozen  white  families.  In  less  than  half  a  lifetime,  the  magical 
power  of  labor  has  made  this  city  what  we  see  it  to-day.  In  our 
country  there  is  no  need  of  a  conflict  between  capital  and  labor; 
for  capital  is  only  another  name  for  accumulated  labor.  Every 
industrious  and  intelligent  workingman  looks  forward  to  the  day 
when  his  earnings  will  make  him  a  capitalist.  There  is  no  bar 
rier  of  caste  to  prevent  his  rising  to  the  highest  place  of  honor 
and  wealth.  He  asks  no  special  privilege  from  the  government; 
but  he  does  ask  that  the  law  shall  not  rob  him  of  employment, 
nor  destroy  his  earnings  by  making  them  the  sport  of  the  gold- 
room,  the  football  of  speculation. 

If  the  foregoing  analysis  is  correct,  it  must  be  seen  that  de 
preciated  and  fluctuating  currency  has  been  the  chief  cause  of 
our  recent  disasters ;  and  this  view  accords  with  all  experience, 
at  home  and  abroad.  The  same  story  has  been  reported  in 
every  language  and  in  every  nation.  Recovery  from  such  dis 
asters  has  come  in  only  one  way,  by  economy,  reduction  of 
credits,  and  a  return  to  the  basis  of  real  money.  By  these 
means,  and  in  the  midst  of  great  suffering,  our  people  have  been 
slowly  making  their  way  out  of  the  ruins.  The  illusions  of  the 
seven  years  which  preceded  the  crash  have  been  rudely  dis 
pelled,  and  we  have  been  brought  face  to  face  with  realities.  It 
has  been  a  period  of  adjustment  and  payment.  Prices  have 
settled  back  to  the  old  peace  level ;  the  wrecks  have  been  grad 
ually  cleared  away;  the  revival  has  begun.  The  products  of 
our  labor  are  again  finding  their  way  to  the  markets  of  the 
\vorld.  Within  the  last  three  years,  in  our  foreign  trade,  we 
have  sold  six  hundred  millions  more  than  we  have  bought ;  and 
the  balance  in  our  favor  is  increasing.  Less  than  two  hundred 
millions  of  our  national  bonds  are  now  held  in  Europe,  and 
more  than  two  thirds  of  them  are  long  bonds  at  low  interest. 
The  favorable  balance  of  trade  has  made  resumption  compara 
tively  easy. 

Four  years  ago  Congress  saw  another  opportunity  to  place 
the  business  of  the  country  again  on  a  stable  foundation.  The 
law  of  1875 'l  fixed  the  date  when  the  promise  of  the  war  should 

1  The  Resumption  Act,  January  14,  1875. 


620  SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION. 

be  redeemed.  It  was  a  great  act  of  national  faith,  too  long 
delayed,  but  made  doubly  necessary  by  the  sufferings  of  our 
people.  The  effort  to  keep  this  promise  has  been  fiercely  re 
sisted  at  every  stage.  Orators  in  Congress  and  out  of  Congress 
have  demonstrated,  to  their  own  satisfaction,  that  resumption 
was  impossible,  and  the  demonstration  was  repeated  even  as  late 
as  two  months  ago.  Cobbett,  the  great  English  pamphleteer, 
declared  in  1816  that  resumption  in  England  was  impossible ; 
and  he  publicly  offered  himself  to  be  broiled  on  a  gridiron  on 
the  day  when  cash  payments  should  be  resumed.  For  years  he 
kept  the  picture  of  a  gridiron  at  the  head  of  his  paper,  to  remind 
his  readers  of  his  prophecy.  We,  too,  have  had  our  gridiron 
prophets ;  but  all  their  predictions  have  failed.  Against  deter 
mined  opposition  and  repeated  prophecies  of  evil,  resumption 
has  come ;  and  it  has  come  to  stay.  As  I  said  in  the  outset,  it 
will  stay,  because  it  ought  to  stay,  and  because  we  are  able  to 
maintain  it.  In  anticipation  of  its  coming,  the  business  of  the 
country  has  gradually  adjusted  itself  to  the  coin  standard. 
Every  legitimate  enterprise  will  be  benefited  by  resumption,  and 
all  classes  of  the  community  will  rejoice  in  it  except  the  gold 
gamblers  and  their  associates  whose  craft  it  has  destroyed,  and 
except  also  those  political  prophets,  whose  occupation  is  gone 
by  the  explosion  of  their  theories  and  the  failure  of  their  pre 
dictions. 

That  resumption  can  now  be  maintained,  intelligent  men  no 
longer  doubt. 

There  are  locked  up  in  the  vaults  of  the  Treasury,  to-day,  one 
hundred  and  forty  millions  of  coin,  with  no  other  demand  upon 
it  than  the  maintenance  of  the  greenback  at  par.  All  experi 
ence  declares  that  this  reserve  is  amply  sufficient  to  maintain 
resumption.  Should  it  prove  insufficient,  the  Secretary  of  the- 
Treasury  has  both  the  authority  and  the  ability  to  increase  it. 
The  people  will  have  no  motive  to  demand  any  great  amount  of 
coin;  for  paper  at  par  is  more  convenient  than  gold  or  silver. 
The  banks  are  bound,  both  by  law  and  their  own  interests,  to 
aid  in  maintaining  resumption.  The  amount  of  national  bonds 
now  held  abroad  is  too  small  to  enable  foreign  creditors  to  drain 
us  of  our  coin.  If  necessary,  we  can  sell  to  Europe  more  of  our 
four  per  cent  bonds  than  she  can  send  home  of  our  six  per  cents. 
But  we  must  not  assume  that  all  danger  is  past.  Resumption 
can  be  defeated  in  one  of  two  ways :  first,  by  great  and  unex- 


SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION. 

pected  calamity,  like  war,  or  the  general  failure  of  our  crops, 
which  should  turn  the  balance  of  trade  against  us ;  or,  second, 
by  the  hostile  legislation  of  Congress.  The  probability  of  the 
former  is  too  remote  to  be  seriously  considered ;  the  danger  of 
the  latter  must  be  prevented  by  the  intelligence  and  vigilance  of 
our  people. 

Though  the  opposition  to  resumption  has  shown  great 
strength  in  Congress,  even  down  to  a  very  recent  date,  yet,  now 
that  par  has  been  reached,  I  do  not  believe  it  will  be  longer 
assailed  by  direct  legislation.  The  instinct  of  self-preservation 
will  probably  lead  politicians  to  abandon  such  efforts.  The  real 
danger  lies  in  indirect  assaults,  which  may  be  made  in  several 
ways.  If  the  expenditures  of  the  government  should  be  in 
creased  by  large  appropriations  for  the  various  schemes  which 
are  urged  upon  Congress,  so  as  to  produce  a  deficit  in  the  reve 
nues,  rather  than  levy  additional  taxes,  Congress  will  be  tempted 
to  issue  more  greenbacks,  and  carry  expansion  to  a  point  at 
which  resumption  will  break  down.  Rigorous  economy,  and  a 
persistent  maintenance  of  revenue  sufficient  for  necessary  cur 
rent  expenses,  and  for  the  sinking  fund,  will  be  our  safeguard  in 
this  direction. 

The  most  dangerous  indirect  assault  upon  resumption  is  the 
attempt  to  abolish  the  national  banks  and  substitute  additional 
greenbacks  in  place  of  bank-notes.  This  effort  will  call  to  its 
support  the  sentiment  which,  to  some  extent,  prevails  against 
moneyed  corporations.  Should  the  attempt  succeed,  it  will 
inevitably  result  in  suspension  of  specie  payments.  While  the 
Treasury  aided  by  the  banks  can  now  easily  maintain  at  par  the 
outstanding  volume  of  greenbacks,  resumption  would  unques 
tionably  break  down  if  the  volume  were  increased  three  hundred 
and  twenty  millions.  We  must  debate  the  bank  question  with 
our  eyes  open  to  the  certainty  of  this  result.  And  this  ought 
to  be  decisive  against  the  measure.  But  besides  destroying 
resumption,  it  would  be  a  most  radical  and  dangerous  revolu 
tion  in  our  system  of  government.  During  the  period  of  war 
and  reconstruction,  many  good  people  were  alarmed  at  the 
tendency  to  centralize  power  at  Washington ;  but  the  proposi 
tion  we  are  now  considering  would  result  in  a  centralization  of 
power  without  a  parallel  in  our  history.  Before  the  war,  except 
for  the  purpose  of  furnishing  small  change  in  the  form  of  sub 
sidiary  and  token  coinage,  it  was  never  so  much  as  suggested 


622  SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION. 

that  the  government  had  any  right  to  become  the  proprietary 
manufacturer  of  money.  It  was  the  acknowledged  duty  of 
Congress  to  declare  the  value  of  coins,  and  to  coin  the  bullion 
of  private  citizens  which  might  be  brought  to  the  mint  for  that 
purpose;  but  it  had  no  authority  to  determine  the  volume  of 
currency  or  to  regulate  its  distribution. 

The  substitution  of  greenbacks  for  national  bank  notes  is 
proposed  on  the  theory  that  the  Treasury  should  be  converted 
into  a  workshop  for  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  money;  that 
not  only  its  quality,  but  also  its  quantity  and  distribution,  shall 
depend  solely  upon  the  will  of  Congress.  To  force  a  citizen 
into  the  army,  and  put  him  in  the  front  of  battle  without  his 
consent,  was  thought  by  many  a  violent  invasion  of  private 
rights ;  but  for  Congress  to  assume  the  power  to  raise  or  de 
press  all  prices,  to  change  the  value  of  every  purchase  and  of 
every  private  contract,  would  be  a  usurpation  of  power  the 
most  despotic  and  dangerous  ever  proposed  to  Americans. 

We  are  told  that  the  people  demand  a  volume  of  currency 
sufficient  for  the  wants  of  trade.  So  they  do.  But  what  man 
or  set  of  men  is  wise  enough  to  measure  these  wants,  and  de 
clare  the  exact  volume  of  currency  that  will  meet  them.  Sup 
pose  a  hundred  wise  men  of  New  York  should  take  the  contract 
of  housing,  clothing,  feeding,  and  supplying  the  wants  of  the 
million  people  who  live  on  Manhattan  Island.  Remember  that 
all  nations  are  placed  under  contribution  to  supply  that  city. 
The  ships  of  every  sea  are  landing  at  her  docks  the  products  of 
every  clime.  Railway  trains  from  every  quarter  of  the  Union 
are  pouring  in  their  contributions.  Millions  of  people  in  vari 
ous  parts  of  the  world  are  at  work  creating  the  merchandise 
which  the  city  needs.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  her  own 
people  are  busy  preparing  these  products  for  her  use.  Is  it 
possible  to  conceive  that  the  wit  of  man  is  able  to  devise  any 
artificial  system  by  which  the  infinite  daily  wants  of  New  York 
shall  be  accurately  measured  and  constantly  and  promptly 
supplied?  Extend  the  scheme  till  it  shall  embrace  the  whole 
Union,  with  its  forty-five  millions  of  people.  Is  any  Congress 
wise  enough  to  measure  all  this  vast  business,  and  to  determine 
in  advance  just  how  much  currency  is  needed  to  transact  it? 
To  propose  it  is  to  ask  impossibilities ;  and  yet,  by  the  opera 
tion  of  laws  higher  and  more  potent  than  human  legislation,  all 
this  is  silently  and  perfectly  accomplished.  Millions  of  men, 


SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION.  623 

acting  without  concert,  each  working  for  his  own  interest  in 
obedience  to  the  great  law  of  demand  and  supply,  house, 
clothe,  feed,  and  transport  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and 
carry  on  their  manifold  enterprises  with  perfect  harmony  and 
regularity.  Any  attempt  of  Congress  to  adjust  the  volume  of 
currency  to  the  wants  of  trade  by  arbitrary  legislation  is  doomed 
to  certain  and  disastrous  failure. 

The  national  banking  system  is  that  part  of  our  financial 
machinery  by  which  the  volume  of  paper  currency  may  in 
crease  or  diminish  in  obedience  to  the  laws  of  trade.  If  the 
volume  becomes  excessive,  their  notes  are  returned  to  the 
banks  to  be  issued  again,  when  increasing  business  requires 
them.  The  abolition  of  the  national  banks  means  the  destruc 
tion  of  this  indispensable  self-adjusting  principle  of  our  cur 
rency  system.  Surely,  intelligent  men  do  not  suppose  we  can 
get  on  without  a  banking  system  of  some  kind.  The  bank  is 
the  chief  instrument  of  modern  exchange.  It  is  as  necessary 
to  trade  as  the  railroad  is  to  transportation.  It  brings  the  bor 
rower  and  lender  together,  and  renders  available  for  the  uses 
of  industry  the  loanable  capital  of  the  community.  Ninety  per 
cent  of  all  our  trade  is  carried  on  by  means  of  credits,  in  the 
form  of  drafts,  checks,  and  commercial  bills,  and  only  ten  per 
cent  by  the  actual  use  of  money,  which  has  become  the  small 
change  of  commerce.  The  vast  mass  of  deposits  and  bank 
credits  is  now  subjected  to  searching  national  inspection.  If 
the  power  to  issue  notes  be  taken  from  the  banks,  they  will 
have  no  inducement  to  remain  under  such  scrutiny.  We  shall 
go  back  to  the  wretched  system  of  State  banks  and  private 
broker-shops,  and  create  three  hundred  and  twenty  millions 
more  of  paper  currency  which  will  escape  all  taxation.  On 
every  principle  of  public  policy  the  attempt  should  be  resisted. 
It  ought  not  to  succeed,  and  I  do  not  believe  it  can  succeed. 
To  make  resumption  sure,  we  should  insist  that  our  present 
currency  and  coinage  laws  shall  remain  for  the  present  un 
changed.  Whether  we  can  safely  allow  the  government  to 
keep  $340,000,000  of  currency  in  circulation,  and  to  that  extent 
make  the  Treasury  a  bank  of  issue,  remains  to  be  tested  by 
experience.  For  myself,  I  doubt  its  wisdom  as  a  permanent 
policy.  But  let  the  experiment  be  fairly  tried. 

Later,  some  modification  may  be  needed  in  our  coinage  law. 
If  other  nations  persist  in  their  refusal  to  restore  silver  to  its 


624  SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION. 

old  place  of  honor,  as  a  part  of  the  world's  coinage ;  if  the  prin 
ciple  of  bi-metallic  currency  should  be  practically  abandoned 
by  other  nations  who  have  long  maintained  it,  —  we  may  by 
and  by  encounter  serious  difficulties,  as  our  coinage  of  silver 
increases.  I  do  not  believe  that  our  people  will  allow  either 
metal  to  drive  the  other  out  of  circulation.  In  some  wise 
and  just  way  they  will  meet  and  avert  the  danger  when  it 
comes. 

Successful  resumption  will  greatly  aid  in  bringing  into  the 
murky  sky  of  our  politics  what  the  signal  service  people  call 
"  clearing  weather."  It  puts  an  end  to  a  score  of  controversies 
which  have  long  vexed  the  public  mind,  and  wrought  mischief 
to  business.  It  ends  the  angry  contention  over  the  difference 
between  the  money  of  the  bondholder  and  the  money  of  the 
plough-holder.  It  relieves  enterprising  Congressmen  of  the  ne 
cessity  of  introducing  twenty-five  or  thirty  bills  a  session  to 
furnish  the  people  with  cheap  money,  to  prevent  gold-gam 
bling,  and  to  make  customs  duties  payable  in  greenbacks.  It 
will  dismiss  to  the  limbo  of  things  forgotten  such  Utopian 
schemes  as  a  currency  based  upon  the  magic  circle  of  the  inter- 
convertibility  of  two  different  forms  of  irredeemable  paper,  and 
a  currency  "  based  on  the  public  faith,"  and  secured  by  "  all 
the  resources  of  the  nation  "  in  general,  but  by  no  particular 
part  of  them.  We  shall  still  hear  echoes  of  the  old  conflict, 
such  as  "  the  barbarism  and  cowardice  of  gold  and  silver,"  and 
the  virtues  of  "fiat  money"  ;  but  the  theories  which  gave  them 
birth  will  linger  among  us  like  belated  ghosts,  and  soon  find 
rest  in  the  political  grave  of  dead  issues.  All  these  will  take 
their  places  in  history  alongside  of  the  resolution  of  Vansittart, 
in  1811,  that  "  British  paper  had  not  fallen,  but  gold  had  risen 
in  value  "  ;  of  the  declaration  of  Castlereagh,  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  that  "  the  money  standard  is  a  sense  of  value  in 
reference  to  currency  as  compared  with  commodities  "  ;  and  the 
opinion  of  another  member,  who  declared  that  "  the  standard 
is  neither  gold  nor  silver,  but  something'  set  up  in  the  imagina 
tion  to  be  regulated  by  public  opinion."  When  we  have  fully 
awakened  from  these  vague  dreams,  public  opinion  will  resume 
its  old  channels,  and  the  wisdom  and  experience  of  the  fathers 
of  our  Constitution  will  again  be  acknowledged  and  followed. 

We  shall  agree,  as  our  fathers  did,  that  the  yardstick  shall 
have  length ;  that  the  pound  must  have  weight ;  that  the  dollar 


SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION.  625 

must  have  value  in  itself;  and  that  neither  length,  nor  weight, 
nor  value,  can  be  created  by  the  fiat  of  law.  Congress,  relieved 
of  the  arduous  task  of  regulating  and  managing  all  the  business 
of  our  people,  will  address  itself  to  the  humbler  but  more  im 
portant  work  of  preserving  the  public  peace,  and  managing 
wisely  the  revenues  and  expenditures  of  the  government.  In 
dustry  will  no  longer  wait  for  the  Legislature  to  discover  easy 
roads  to  sudden  wealth,  but  will  begin  again  to  rely  upon  labor 
and  frugality  as  the  only  certain  road  to  riches.  Prosperity, 
which  has  long  been  waiting,  is  now  ready  to  come ;  if  we  do 
not  rudely  repulse  her,  she  will  soon  revisit  our  people,  and  will 
stay  until  another  periodical  craze  shall  drive  her  away. 

During  the  whole  period  which  resumption  closes,  our  Con 
stitution  has  been  on  trial  for  its  life.  When  the  greatest  re 
bellion  that  the  world  has  ever  known  assailed  it,  the  believers 
in  governments  founded  on  hereditary  right,  or  on  sheer  force, 
told  us  that  the  bubble  of  republican  government  was  about  to 
burst.  They  did  not  understand  the  resources  of  a  government 
based  on  'the  national  will.  They  did  not  understand  that  in 
our  Constitution  the  greatest  powers  —  rights  too  precious  to 
be  delegated  to  the  Congress  or  to  the  States  —  are  reserved 
to  the  people  themselves.  In  the  supreme  moment  of  our 
peril,  these  voluntary  powers  were  displayed  in  unsurpassed 
majesty  and  strength  on  a  thousand  battle-fields,  and  they  pre 
served  the  republic  from  overthrow.  Many  feared  that,  in  the 
great  struggle  to  save  the  Union,  personal  liberty,  freedom  of 
opinion,  and  respect  for  law  would  be  lost.  But  outside  of  the 
actual  theatre  of  military  operations  the  orderly  course  of  jus 
tice  was  undisturbed.  The  rights  of  persons  and  property  were 
almost  everywhere  sacredly  preserved. 

In  the  great  conflict  between  Great  Britain  and  the  first  Na 
poleon,  though  no  hostile  army  landed  on  her  territory,  yet  in 
England,  as  we  are  told  by  one  of  her  eminent  historians,  the 
ordinary  course  of  law  was  suspended,  opinion  was  gagged,  the 
right  of  public  meeting  was  curtailed,  government  indictments 
for  libel  and  trials  for  constructive  treason  were  numerous, 
and  other  measures  were  adopted  far  more  repressive  than  any 
which  prevailed  here  during  the  great  war  on  our  own  soil  and 
among  our  own  citizens.  Professor  Goldwin  Smith  has  thus 
noted  with  admiration  the  behavior  of  our  people  during  the 
crisis :  — 

VOL.   II.  40 


626  SUSPENSION  AND  RESUMPTION. 

"  History  can  scarcely  supply  a  parallel  to  this  perfect  reliance  of  a 
government  on  its  moral  strength,  and  the  unconstrained  loyalty  of  its 
people.  The  second  election  of  Lincoln  took  place  at  the  acme  of  ex 
citement,  when  every  other  family  had  a  member  in  the  field  for  the 
Union,  or  in  a  soldier's  grave.  Yet  there  was  not  only  perfect  order 
maintained,  without  any  intervention  of  the  police,  but  perfect  respect 
for  every  right,  not  only  of  voting,  speaking,  and  writing,  but  of  public 
demonstration.  What  government  in  Europe  could  safely  have  allowed 
sympathy  with  a  great  rebellion  to  hang  out  its  banner  in  all  the  streets  ? 
Never  to  be  forgotten,  either,  are  those  predictions  of  military  usurpation 
and  sabre  rule  as  the  sure  result  of  civil  war,  uttered  with  exultation  by 
enemies,  with  sorrow  by  friends,  warranted  by  the  experience  of  history, 
but  belied  by  the  republican  loyalty  of  the  generals  and  the  immediate 
return  of  the  armies  to  civil  life." 

This  testimony  from  an  eminent  foreigner  is  as  important 
as  it  is  just.  The  people  passed  cheerfully  and  joyfully  from 
the  ambition  and  glory  of  war  to  the  humbler  walks  of  peace. 
And  finally,  notwithstanding  the  confusion  of  public  opinion, 
caused  by  great  suffering,  the  public  faith  has  been  .preserved, 
and  the  national  character  greatly  strengthened.  Reviewing 
the  whole  period,  we  have  a  right  to  say  that  the  wisdom  of 
our  institutions  has  been  vindicated,  and  our  confidence  in  their 
stability  been  strengthened.  Legislation  has  been  directed  more 
and  more  to  the  enlargement  of  private  rights  and  the  promo 
tion  of  the  interests  of  labor.  It  has  been  devoted,  not  to  the 
glory  of  a  dynasty,  but  to  the  welfare  of  a  people.  Slavery, 
with  the  aristocracy  of  caste  which  it  engendered,  and  the  deg 
radation  of  labor  which  it  produced,  has  disappeared.  With 
out  undue  exultation,  we  may  declare  that  the  bells  of  the  new 
year 

"  Ring  out  a  slowly  dying  cause, 

And  ancient  forms  of  party  strife  ; 
Ring  in  the  nobler  modes  of  life, 
With  sweeter  manners,  purer  laws." 

We  have  learned  the  great  lesson,  applicable  alike  to  nations 
and  to  men,  — 

"  Self-reverence,  self-knowledge,  self-control, — 
These  three  alone  lead  life  to  sovereign  power." 


JOSEPH    HENRY. 

REMARKS   MADE   AT  THE   MEMORIAL   MEETING   HELD   IN    THE 
HALL  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 

JANUARY  16,  1879. 


"  And  who  hath  trod  Olympus,  from  his  eye 
Fades  not  the  broader  outlook  of  the  gods." 

MR.  PRESIDENT,  — In  the  presence  of  these  fathers  of 
science,  who  have  honored  this  occasion  with  their  wis 
dom  and  eloquence,  I  can  do  but  little  more  than  express  my 
gratitude  for  the  noble  contribution  they  have  made  to  this 
national  expression  of  love  and  reverence.  So  completely  have 
they  covered  the  ground,  so  fully  have  they  sketched  the  great 
life  which  we  celebrate,  that  nothing  is  left  but  to  linger  a  mo 
ment  over  the  tributes  they  have  offered,  and  select  here  and 
there  a  special  excellence  to  carry  away  as  a  lasting  memorial. 

No  page  of  human  history  is  so  instructive  and  significant  as 
the  record  of  those  early  influences  which  develop  the  charac 
ter  and  direct  the  lives  of  eminent  men.  To  every  man  of 
great  original  power  there  comes  in  early  youth  a  moment  of 
sudden  discovery,  of  self-recognition,  when  his  own  nature  is  re 
vealed  to  himself,  when  he  catches,  for  the  first  time,  a  strain  of 
that  immortal  song  to  which  his  own  spirit  answers,  and  which 
becomes  thenceforth  and  forever  the  inspiration  of  his  life,  — 
"  Like  perfect  music  unto  noble  words." 

More  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  in  Strasburg  on  the  Rhine, 
in  obedience  to  the  commands  of  his  father,  a  German  lad  was 
reluctantly  studying  the  mysteries  of  the  civil  law,  but  feeding 
his  spirit  as  best  he  could  upon  the  formal  and  artificial  poetry 
of  his  native  land,  when  a  page  of  William  Shakespeare  met  his 
eye,  and  changed  the  whole  current  of  his  life.  Abandoning 
the  law,  he  created  and  crowned  with  an  immortal  name  the 
grandest  epoch  of  German  literature.  Recording  his  own  ex- 


628  JOSEPH  HENRY. 

perience,  he  says :  "  At  the  first  touch  of  Shakespeare's  genius, 
I  made  the  glad  confession  that  something  inspiring  hovered 

above  me The  first  page  of  his  that  I  read  made  me  his 

for  life;  and  when  I  had  finished  a  single  play,  I  stood  like  one 
born  blind,  on  whom  a  miraculous  hand  bestows  sight  in  a  mo 
ment.  I  saw,  I  felt,  in  the  most  vivid  manner,  that  my  exist 
ence  was  infinitely  expanded." 

This  old-world  experience  of  Goethe  was  strikingly  repro 
duced,  though  under  different  conditions,  and  with  different 
results,  in  the  early  life  of  Joseph  Henry.  You  have  just  heard 
the  incident  worthily  recounted;  but  let  us  linger  over  it  a 
moment. 

An  orphan  boy  of  sixteen,  of  tough  Scotch  fibre,  laboring  for 
his  own  support  at  the  handicraft  of  the  jeweller,  unconscious 
of  his  great  powers,  delighted  with  romance  and  the  drama, 
dreaming  of  a  possible  career  on  the  stage,  his  attention  was 
suddenly  arrested  by  a  single  page  of  a  humble  book  of  sci 
ence  which  chanced  to  fall  into  his  hands.  It  was  not  the  flash 
of  poetic  vision  which  aroused  him :  it  was  the  voice  of  gVeat 
Nature  calling  her  child.  With  quick  recognition  and  glad 
reverence  his  spirit  responded ;  and  from  that  moment  to  the 
end  of  his  long  and  honored  life,  Joseph  Henry  was  the  devoted 
student  of  science,  the  faithful  interpreter  of  nature.  To  those 
who  knew  his  gentle  spirit,  it  is  not  surprising  that  ever  after 
ward  he  kept  this  little  volume  near  him,  and  cherished  it  as 
the  source  of  his  first  inspiration.  In  the  maturity  of  his  fame, 
he  recorded  on  its  fly-leaf  his  gratitude  in  these  words :  "  This 
book,  under  Providence,  has  exerted  a  remarkable  influence  on 
my  life.  ....  It  opened  to  me  a  new  world  of  thought  and 
enjoyment,  invested  things  before  almost  unnoticed  with  the 
highest  interest,  fixed  my  mind  on  the  study  of  nature,  and 
caused  me  to  resolve,  at  the  time  of  reading  it,  that  I  would 
devote  my  life  to  the  acquisition  of  knowledge." 

We  have  heard  from  his  venerable  associates  with  what  reso 
lute  perseverance  he  trained  his  mind  and  marshalled  his  pow 
ers  for  the  higher  realms  of  science.  He  was  the  first  American 
after  Franklin  who  made  a  series  of  successful  original  experi 
ments  in  electricity  and  magnetism.  He  entered  the  mighty 
line  of  Volta,  Galvani,  Oersted,  Davy,  and  Ampere,  the  great 
exploring  philosophers  of  the  world,  and  added  to  their  work 
a  final  great  discovery,  which  made  the  electro-magnetic  tele- 


JOSEPH  HENRY.  629 

graph  possible.  It  remained  for  the  inventor  only  to  construct 
an  instrument  and  an  alphabet.  Professor  Henry  refused  to 
reap  any  pecuniary  rewards  from  his  great  discovery,  but  gave 
freely  to  mankind  what  nature  and  science  had  given  to  him. 

I  observe  that  these  venerable  gentlemen  who  have  spoken 
express  some  regret  that  Professor  Henry  left  their  higher  cir 
cle  of  scientific  discovery  to  come  down  to  us  laymen  in  the 
walks  of  science ;  and  to  some  extent  I  share  their  regret. 
Doubtless  it  was  a  great  loss  to  science.  I  remember  that 
Agassiz  once  said  he  had  made  it  the  rule  of  his  life  to  aban 
don  any  scientific  investigation  so  soon  as  it  became  useful.  I 
fancied  I  saw  him  and  his  brethren  going  beyond  the  region 
of  perpetual  frost,  up  among  the  wild  elements  of  nature  and 
the  hidden  mysteries  of  science,  and  when  they  had  made  a 
discovery,  and  brought  it  down  to  the  line  of  commercial  val 
ues,  leaving  it  there,  knowing  that  the  world  would  make  it  use 
ful  and  profitable,  while  they  went  back  to  resume  their  original 
research.  I  do  not  wonder  that  these  men  regretted  the  loss  of 
such  a  comrade  as  Joseph  Henry.  But  something  is  due  to  the 
millions  of  Americans  outside  the  circle  of  science ;  and  the 
republic  has  the  right  to  call  on  all  her  children  for  service.  It 
•  was  needful  that  the  government  should  have  here  at  its  capital 
a  great,  luminous-minded,  pure-hearted  man  to  serve  as  its 
counsellor  and  friend  in  matters  of  science.  Such  an  adviser 
was  never  more  needed  than  at  the  date  of  Professor  Henry's 
arrival  at  the  capital. 

The  venerable  gentleman  of  almost  eighty  years,  who  has 
just  addressed  us  so  eloquently,  has  portrayed  the  difficulties 
which  beset  the  government  in  its  attempt  to  determine  how  it 
should  wisely  and  worthily  execute  the  trust  of  Smithson.  It 
was  a  perilous  moment  for  the  credit  of  America  when  that 
bequest  was  made.  In  his  large  catholicity  of  mind,  Smithson 
did  not  trammel  the  bequest  with  conditions.  In  nine  words  he 
set  forth  its  object :  "  For  the  increase  and  diffusion  of  knowl 
edge  among  men."  He  asked  and  believed  that  America  would 
interpret  his  wish  aright,  and  with  the  liberal  wisdom  of  science. 

A  town-meeting4  is  not  a  good  place  to  determine  scientific 
truths ;  and  the  yeas  and  nays  that  are  called  from  this  desk 
from  day  to  day  are  not  the  supreme  test  of  science,  as  the 
country  finds  when  we  attempt  to  settle  any  scientific  question, 
whether  it  relates  to  the  polariscope  or  to  finance. 


630  JOSEPH  HENRY. 

For  ten  years  Congress  wrestled  with  those  nine  words  of 
Smithson,  and  could  not  handle  them.  Some  political  philoso 
phers  of  that  period  held  that  we  had  no  constitutional  author 
ity  to  accept  the  gift  at  all,  and  proposed  to  send  it  back  to 
England.  Every  conceivable  proposition  was  made.  The  col 
leges  clutched  at  it;  the  libraries  wanted  it;  the  publication 
societies  desired  to  scatter  it.  The  fortunate  settlement  of  the 
question  was  this :  that,  after  ten  years  of  wrangling,  Congress 
was  wise  enough  to  acknowledge  its  own  ignorance,  and  author 
ized  a  body  of  competent  men  to  find  some  one  who  knew  how 
to  settle  the  question.  And  these  men  were  wise  enough  to 
choose  your  great  comrade  to  undertake  the  task.  Sacrificing 
his  brilliant  prospects  as  a  discoverer,  he  undertook  the  difficult 
work.  He  draughted  a  paper,  in  which  he  offered  an  interpreta 
tion  of  the  will  of  Smithson,  mapped  out  a  plan  which  would 
meet  the  demands  of  science,  and  submitted  it  to  the  suffrage 
of  the  republic  of  scientific  scholars.  After  due  deliberation  it 
received  the  almost  unanimous  approval  of  the  scientific  world. 
With  faith  and  sturdy  perseverance,  he  adhered  to  the  plan, 
and  steadily  resisted  all  attempts  to  overthrow  it. 

In  the  thirty-two  years  during  which  he  administered  the 
great  trust,  he  never  swerved  from  his  first  purpose ;  and  he 
succeeded  at  last  in  realizing  the  ideas  with  which  he  started. 
But  it  has  taken  all  that  time  to  get  rid  of  the  incumbrance  with 
which  Congress  had  overloaded  the  Institution.  In  this  work 
Professor  Henry  taught  the  valuable  lesson  to  all  founders  and 
supporters  of  colleges,  that  they  should  pay  less  for  brick  and 
mortar,  and  more  for  brains.  Under  the  first  orders  imposed 
upon  him  by  Congress,  he  was  required  to  expend  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars  a  year  in  purchasing  books.  By  wise  resist 
ance  he  managed  to  lengthen  out  the  period  for  that  expendi 
ture  ten  years ;  and  a  few  years  ago  he  had  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  Congress  remove  from  the  Institution  the  heavy  load,  by 
transferring  the  Smithsonian  library  to  the  library  of  Con 
gress.  The  fifty-eight  thousand  volumes  and  forty  thousand 
pamphlets,  of  rare  scientific  value,  which  came  from  this  source, 
have  added  greatly  to  the  value  of  the  national  library;  but 
their  care  and  preservation  would  soon  have  absorbed  the  re 
sources  of  the  Smithsonian.  When  Congress  shall  have  taken 
the  other  incumbrance,  the  National  Museum,  off  the  hands  of 
the  Institution,  by  making  fit  provision  for  the  care  of  the  great 


JOSEPH  HENRY.  631 

collection,  they  will  have  done  still  more  to  realize  the  ideas  of 
Professor  Henry. 

He  has  stood  by  our  side  in  all  these  years,  meeting  every 
great  question  of  science  with  that  calm  spirit  which  knew  no 
haste  and  no  rest.  At  the  call  of  the  government  he  discovered 
new  truths,  and  mustered  them  into  its  service.  The  twelve 
hundred  lighthouses  that  shine  on  our  shores,  the  three  thou 
sand  buoys  along  our  rivers  and  coasts,  testify  to  his  faithfulness 
and  efficiency.  When  it  became  evident  that  we  could  no 
longer  depend  upon  the  whale-fisheries  to  supply  our  beacon- 
lights,  he  began  to  search  for  a  substitute  for  sperm  oil ;  and, 
after  a  thousand  patient  experiments,  he  made  the  discovery 
that,  of  all  the  oils  of  the  world,  the  common,  cheap  lard-oil  of 
America,  when  heated  to  250°  Fahrenheit,  became  the  best  illu- 
minant.  That  discovery  gave  us  at  once  an  unfailing  supply, 
and  for  many  years  saved  the  treasury  a  hundred  thousand  dol 
lars  a  year.  He  had  no  such  pride  of  authorship  as  to  cling  to 
his  own  methods  when  a  better  could  be  found.  He  has  re 
cently  tested  the  qualities  of  petroleum,  and  recommended  its 
use  for  the  smaller  lights. 

In  instances  far  too  numerous  to  be  recounted,  we  have  long 
had  this  man  as  our  counsellor,  our  guide,  and  our  friend.  Dur 
ing  all  the  years  of  his  sojourn  among  us,  there  has  been  one 
spot  in  this  city  across  which  the  shadow  of  partisan  politics 
has  never  fallen ;  and  that  was  the  ground  of  the  Smithsonian 
Institution.  We  have  seen  in  this  city  at  least  one  great,  high 
trust  so  faithfully  discharged  for  a  third  of  a  century  that  no 
breath  of  suspicion  has  ever  dimmed  its  record.  The  Board 
of  Regents  have  seen  Professor  Henry's  accounts  all  closed ; 
and,  after  the  most  rigid  examination,  the  unanimous  declara 
tion  is  made,  that,  to  the  last  cent,  during  the  whole  of  that  pe 
riod,  his  financial  administration  was  as  faultless  and  complete 
as  his  discoveries  in  science.  The  blessing  of  such  an  example 
in  this  city  ought  at  least  to  do  something  to  reconcile  these 
men  of  science  to  the  loss  they  suffered  when  their  friend  was 
called  to  serve  the  government  at  its  capital. 

Remembering  his  great  career  as  a  man  of  science,  as  a  man 
who  served  his  government  with  singular  ability  and  faithful 
ness,  who  was  loved  and  venerated  by  every  circle,  who  blessed 
with  the  light  of  his  friendship  the  worthiest  and  the  best,  whose 
life  added  new  lustre  to  the  glory  of  the  human  race,  we  shall 
be  most  fortunate  if  ever  in  the  future  we  see  his  like  again. 


GUSTAVE    SCHLEICHER. 

REMARKS   MADE   IN   THE   HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 
FEBRUARY  17,  1879. 


MR.  GARFIELD  delivered  this  eulogy  pending  the  following  resolutions, 
offered  by  Mr.  Giddings,  of  Texas  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  this  House  has  heard  with  profound  sorrow  the  an 
nouncement  of  the  death  of  Hon.  Gustave  Schleicher,  late  a  Representa 
tive  from  the  State  of  Texas. 

"  Resolved,  That  in  token  of  regard  for  the  memory  of  the  lamented 
deceased,  the  members  of  this  House  do  wear  the  usual  badge  of  mourn 
ing  for  thirty  days. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Clerk  of  this  House  do  communicate  these  reso 
lutions  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 

"  Resolved,  That,  as  a  further  mark  of  respect  to  the  memory  of  the 
deceased,  this  House  do  now  adjourn." 


MR.  SPEAKER,  —  I  stand  with  reverence  in  the  presence 
of  such  a  life  and  such  a  career  as  that  of  Gustave 
Schleicher.  It  illustrates  more  strikingly  than  almost  any  life 
I  know  the  mystery  that  envelops  that  product  which  we  call 
character,  and  which  is  the  result  of  two  great  forces  :  the  initial 
force  which  the  Creator  gave  it  when  he  called  the  man  into 
being,  and  the  force  of  all  the  external  influence  and  culture 
that  mould  and  modify  the  development  of  a  life. 

In  contemplating  the  first  of  these  elements,  no  power  of 
analysis  can  exhibit  all  the  latent  forces  enfolded  in  the  spirit 
of  a  new-born  child,  which  derive  their  origin  from  the  thoughts 
and  deeds  of  remote  ancestors,  and,  enveloped  in  the  awful 
mystery  of  life,  have  been  transmitted  from  generation  to  gen 
eration  across  forgotten  centuries.  Each  new  life  is  thus  "  the 
heir  of  all  the  ages." 


GUSTAVE  SCHLEICHER.  633 

•  Applying  this  reflection  to  the  character  of  Gustave  Schleicher, 
it  may  be  justly  said  that  we  have  known  few  men  in  whose  lives 
were  concentrated  so  many  of  the  deeply  interesting  elements 
that  made  him  what  he  was.  We  are  accustomed  to  say,  and 
we  have  heard  to-night,  that  he  was  born  on  foreign  soil.  In 
one  sense  that  is  true ;  and  yet  in  a  very  proper  historic  sense 
he  was  born  in  our  fatherland.  One  of  the  ablest  of  recent 
historians  begins  his  opening  volume  with  the  declaration  that 
England  is  not  the  fatherland  of  the  English-speaking  people, 
but  that  the  ancient  home,  the  real  fatherland  of  our  race,  is  the 
ancient  forests  of  Germany.  The  same  thought  was  suggested 
by  Montesquieu  long  ago,  when  he  declared  in  his  "  Spirit  of 
Laws  "  that  the  British  Constitution  came  out  of  the  woods 
of  Germany. 

To  this  day  the  Teutonic  races  maintain  the  same  noble  traits 
that  Tacitus  describes  in  his  admirable  history  of  the  manners 
and  character  of  the  Germans.  We  may,  therefore,  say  that 
the  friend  whose  memory  we  honor  to-night  is  one  of  the 
elder  brethren  of  our  race.  He  came  to  America  direct  from 
our  fatherland,  and  not,  like  our  own  fathers,  by  the  way  of 
England. 

We  who  were  born  and  have  passed  all  our  lives  in  this  wide 
New  World  can  hardly  appreciate  the  influences  that  surrounded 
his  early  life.  Born  on  the  borders  of  that  great  forest  of  Ger 
many,  the  Odenwald,  filled  as  it  is  with  the  memories  and  tradi 
tions  of  centuries,  in  which  are  mingled  Scandinavian  mythology, 
legends  of  the  Middle  Ages,  romances  of  feudalism  and  chivalry, 
histories  of  barons  and  kings,  and  the  struggles  of  a  brave  peo 
ple  for  a  better  civilization ;  reared  under  the  institutions  of  a 
strong,  semi-despotic  government;  devoting  his  early  life  to 
personal  culture ;  entering  at  an  early  age  the  University  of 
Giessen,  venerable  with  its  two  and  a  half  centuries  of  existence, 
with  a  library  of  four  hundred  thousand  volumes  at  his  hand, 
with  a  great  museum  of  the  curiosities  and  mysteries  of  nature 
to  study,  —  he  fed  his  eager  spirit  upon  the  rich  culture  which 
that  Old  World  could  give  him,  and  at  twenty-four  years  of  age, 
in  company  with  a  band  of  thirty-seven  young  students,  like 
himself,  cultivated,  earnest,  liberty-loving  almost  to  the  verge  of 
Communism,  —  and  who  of  us  would  not  be  Communists  in  a 
despotism  ?  —  he  came  to  this  country,  attracted  by  one  of  the 
most  wild  and  romantic  pictures  of  American  history,  the  pic-' 


634  GUSTAVE  SCHLEICHER. 

ture  of  Texas  as  it  existed  near  forty  years  ago ;  the  country 
discovered  by  La  Salle  at  the  end  of  his  long  and  perilous  voy 
ages  from  Quebec  to  the  Northern  Lakes  and  from  the  Lakes 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico ;  the  country  possessed  alternately  by 
the  Spanish  and  the  French,  and  then  by  Mexico ;  the  country 
made  memorable  by  such  names  as  Blair  and  Houston,  Albert 
Sidney  Johnston  and  Mirabeau  Lamar,  perhaps  as  adventurous 
and  daring  spirits  as  ever  assembled  on  any  spot  of  the  earth ; 
a  country  that  achieved  its  freedom  by  heroism  never  surpassed, 
and  which  maintained  its  perilous  independence  for  ten  years  in 
spite  of  border  enemies  and  European  intrigues. 

It  is  said  that  a  society  was  formed  in  Europe  embracing  in  its 
membership  men  of  high  rank,  even  members  of  royal  families, 
for  the  purpose  of  colonizing  the  new  republic  of  the  Lone  Star, 
and  making  it  a  dependency  of  Europe  under  their  patronage ; 
but,  without  sharing  in  their  designs,  some  twenty  thousand 
Germans  found  their  way  to  the  new  republic,  and  among  these 
young  Schleicher  came. 

The  people  of  Texas  had  passed  through  a  period  as  wild 
and  exciting  as  the  days  of  the  Crusaders,  and  had  just  united 
their  fortunes  to  this  republic.  How  wide  a  world  opened  be 
fore  these  German  students  !  They  could  hardly  imagine  how 
great  was  the  nation  of  which  they  became  citizens.  Even  the 
new  State  of  their  adoption  was  an  empire  in  itself.  I  suppose 
few  of  us  who  have  never  visited  that  State  can  appreciate  its 
imperial  proportions.  Vastly  larger  than  the  present  republic 
of  France  ;  larger  than  all  our  Atlantic  States  from  the  northern 
line  of  Pennsylvania  to  the  southern  boundary  of  Georgia ;  as 
large  as  the  six  New  England  States,  New  York,  New  Jersey, 
Maryland,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  and  one  half  of  Indiana,  united. 
To  such  a  State,  with  its  measureless  possibilities  of  develop 
ment,  young  Schleicher  came.  It  was  a  noble  field  for  a  bright, 
aspiring,  liberty-loving  scholar  of  the  Old  World,  in  which  to 
find  ample  scope  for  the  fullest  development  of  all  his  powers. 

The  sketches  we  have  already  heard  show  with  what  zeal  and 
success  our  friend  made  use  of  his  advantages.  His  career  as 
a  member  of  this  House  has  exhibited  the  best  results  of  all 
these  influences  of  nature  and  nurture.  He  has  done  justice 
to  the  scholarship  which  Germany  gave  him  and  the  large  and 
comprehensive  ideas  with  which  life  in  the  New  World  inspired 
him. 


GUSTAVE   SCHLEICHER.  635 

To  exhibit  with  a  little  more  fulness  the  origin  of  those  de 
cided  opinions  which  Mr.  Schleicher  held  on  the  great  questions 
of  finance,  I  venture  to  refer  briefly  to  an  interesting  chapter 
in  the  history  of  Texas.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  in  any 
part  of  the  world  life  has  been  more  intense  and  experience 
more  varied  than  among  the  people  of  Texas.  In  the  short 
space  of  ten  years  they  had  tried  the  whole  range  of  financial 
experiments  as  fully  as  France  had  done  in  two  hundred  years. 
Every  possible  form  of  monetary  theory  that  is  recorded  in 
history  Texas  had  tried ;  for  with  that  brave,  quick-thinking, 
and  quick-acting  people,  to  think  was  to  resolve,  and  to  resolve 
was  to  execute.  They  had  tried  a  land  bank  scheme  as  wild 
and  magnificent  as  the  land  bank  of  John  Law.  They  had  tried 
the  direct  issue  of  treasury  notes,  and  had  seen  them  go  down 
from  par  to  fifty  cents,  to  ten  cents,  to  five  cents,  to  two  cents, 
to  nothing,  on  the  dollar.  They  had  tried  "  red-backs  "  of  the 
republic,  notes  of  corporate  banks,  scrip  of  private  citizens,  and 
worthless  notes  from  banks  of  neighboring  States,  and  had  seen 
them  all  fail.  Awakening  from  the  dream  of  their  experiments, 
under  the  leadership  of  clear-sighted  men,  they  put  into  their 
Constitution,  as  they  entered  the  Union,  a  provision  that  "  in 
no  case  shall  the  Legislature  have  power  to  issue  ^treasury  war 
rants,  treasury  notes,  or  paper  of  any  description  to  circulate  as 
money."  More  radical  still,  they  decreed  that  "  no  corporate 
body  shall  be  created,  renewed,  or  extended,  with  banking  or 
discounting  privileges,"  and  "  no  person  or  persons  within  this 
State  shall  issue  any  bill,  promissory  note,  or  other  paper,  to 
circulate  as  money."  They  put  an  end  to  all  paper-money 
systems,  and  since  then  the  majority  of  the  people  of  that  State 
have  never  looked  with  favor  upon  any  other  currency  than 
specie. 

With  such  traditions  and  influences  among  the  people  of  his 
adoption,  and  with  a  student  life  back  of  it,  formed  in  the  solid 
Old  World  ways  of  thinking,  it  is  not  wonderful  that,  in  all  our 
financial  discussions  here,  we  found  Mr.  Schleicher  the  sturdy 
supporter  and  able  advocate  of  a  currency  based  on  coin  of  real 
value  and  full  weight.  I  would  say  nothing  that  has  even  the 
appearance  of  controversy  on  this  occasion.  I  mention  these 
facts  only  to  do  justice  to  his  memory. 

Of  his  character  as  we  knew  it  here,  two  things  struck  me  as 
most  notable. 


636  GUSTAVE  SCHLEICHER. 

First,  he  possessed  that  quality  without  which  no  man  ever 
did,  and  I  hope  no  man  ever  will,  achieve  success  in  this  forum, 
—  the  habit  of  close,  earnest,  hard  work.  All  his  associates 
knew  that,  when  he  rose  to  speak  in  this  hall,  it  was  because  he 
had  something  to  say,  something  that  was  the  result  of  work, 
and  that  he  said  it  because  it  came  from  the  depth  of  his  con 
victions,  as  the  result  of  his  fullest  investigation. 

I  stop  to  notice  the  fact  that,  although  he  spoke  with  an 
accent  brought  from  the  fatherland,  he  had  that  rare  purity  of 
language  aftd  style  which  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  you  and 
I,  Mr.  Speaker,  will  never  achieve,  and  which  few  persons  on 
our  soil  can  rival.  We  learned  our  language  in  the  street;  he 
came  at  once  into  the  parlors  of  English,  and  learned  it  from 
the  masters.  His  printed  English  was  as  pure  as  the  purest 
which  can  be  found  in  the  records  of  our  debates. 

Second,  he  possessed  and  exhibited  a  noteworthy  indepen 
dence  of  character.  In  this  he  taught  a  lesson  which  ought 
never  to  be  forgotten  here.  His  people  trusted  him,  and  by 
their  approval  enforced  the  lesson  that  the  men  who  succeed 
best  in  public  life  are  those  who  take  the  risk  of  standing  by 
their  own  convictions.  That  principle  never  fails  in  the  long 
run,  for  the  people  who  send  representatives  here  do  not  want 
a  mere  echo,  but  a  man  who  sees  with  his  own  eyes  and  fear 
lessly  utters  his  own  thoughts,  as  our  friend  did,  with  a  boldness 
and  courage  that  made  him  a  worthy  example  to  all  American 
statesmen. 


THE    SUGAR    TARIFF. 

SPEECH   DELIVERED   IN   THE   HOUSE   OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 
FEBRUARY  26,  1879. 


ON  the  2ist  of  January,  1879,  Mr.  Robbins,  of  North  Carolina,  re 
ported  from  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  this  bill :  "Be  it  enacted, 
&•£.,  That  tank-bottoms,  syrups  of  sugar-cane-juice,  melada,  concentrated 
melada,  concentrated  molasses,  and  all  sugars  not  above  Np.  13  Dutch 
standard  in  color,  shall  pay  a  duty  of  two  cents  and  forty  hundredths  of 
a  cent  per  pound ;  above  No.  13,  and  not  above  No.  16,  Dutch  standard 
in  color,  shall  pay  a  duty  of  two  cents  and  seventy-five  hundredths  of  a 
cent  per  pound;  all  above  No.  16  Dutch  standard  in  color  shall  pay  a 
duty  of  four  cents  per  pound :  Provided,  That  nothing  herein  shall  be 
construed  to  alter  or  repeal  the  act  entitled  '  An  Act  to  carry  into  effect 
a  Convention  between  the  United  States  of  America  and  His  Majesty 
the  King  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  signed  on  the  3Oth  of  January,  1875,' 
which  act  was  approved  August  15,  1876." 

Upon  this  bill  Mr.  Garfield  made  the  following  speech.  On  the  ist 
of  March  the  bill  was  withdrawn  by  Mr.  Robbins,  owing  to  the  press  of 
business  in  the  House,  and  the  near  approach  of  the  end  of  the  session. 


MR.  SPEAKER,  — I  regret  that  I  am  not  feeling  well 
enough  to  address  the  House  on  this  subject  to  my 
own  satisfaction.  By  the  kindness  of  my  colleague  on  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,1  who  paired  with  me,  I  left 
the  House  yesterday  in  consequence  of  illness,  and  I  should  not 
be  here  to-day  were  it  not  that  I  am  charged  with  the  duty  of 
presenting  the  bill  approved  by  the  minority  of  the  committee ; 
but  I  will  try  to  state  the  case,  if  I  can  have  the  forbearance 
and  attention  of  the  House. 

It  must  be  manifest  to  every  one  that  any  considerable  change 
in  our  tariff  laws  at  the  present  session  is  impossible ;   and  no 

1  Mr.  Tucker. 


638  THE  SUGAR    TARIFF. 

change  whatever  should  be  undertaken  at  this  late  day  unless 
demanded  by  the  most  imperative  necessity.  That  such  a  neces 
sity  exists  for  the  modification  of  the  tariff  on  sugar  will  appear 
further  on.  The  pending  bill,  like  all  bills  which  relate  to  cus 
toms  duties,  should  be  considered  in  its  relation  to  four  great 
interests :  the  revenues,  home  industries,  foreign  trade,  and  the 
consumers. 

First,  as  a  source  of  revenue  for  the  support  of  the  govern 
ment,  we  are  receiving  about  $37,000,000  in  coin  per  annum 
from  duties  on  sugar  in  its  various  forms.  That  is  about  one 
sixth  of  all  our  revenues  from  all  sources.  The  effect  of  any 
measure  upon  so  large  a  part  of  the  revenue  is  vital  to  our 
finances  and  to  the  fiscal  credit  of  the  government. 

Second,  it  affects  two  great  producing  industries  of  our  peo 
ple.  The  first  of  these  is  the  growth  of  cane  and  the  produc 
tion  of  cane  sugar,  to  foster  which  Congress  has  for  a  long  time 
levied  a  discriminating  duty,  though  only  a  single  State  is  pur 
suing  the  industry.  Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  sugar  is  one 
of  the  necessities  of  the  daily  life  of  our  people,  they  have  con 
sented  to  pay  a  tax  which,  under  existing  laws,  averages  about 
62^  per  cent  ad  valorem  upon  all  the  sugar  they  consume. 
This  burden  is  borne  cheerfully  for  the  purpose  of  protecting 
and  promoting  a  great  home  industry  in  one  of  our  Southern 
States. 

A  second  important  industry  which  has  grown  up  in  connec 
tion  with  the  sugar  trade,  and  has  attained  to  great  magnitude 
in  recent  years,  is  the  business  of  refining.  It  is  one  of  the  in 
teresting  evidences  of  the  progress  of  civilization,  that  people 
are  using  less  and  less  of  the  raw  sugars  of  commerce  and  more 
and  more  of  refined  sugars.  And  this  change  of  habit  is  not 
merely  a  refinement  of  luxury,  but  is  demanded  by  a  better 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  health.  In  a  recent  investigation 
made  by  the  Analytical  Sanitary  Commission  of  England,  ap 
pointed  to  examine  the  various  kinds  of  food,  Dr.  Hassell,  the 
chairman,  reported,  among  other  things,  the  following:  "We 
feel,  however  reluctantly,  that  we  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  sugars  of  commerce  are  in  general  in  a  state  wholly 
unfit  for  consumption."  That  is  the  latest  voice  of  science  in 
England  on  the  subject  of  unrefined  sugar.  Now,  if  gentlemen 
will  turn  to  the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  of  New  York,  for 
February,  1879,  they  will  find  a  very  interesting  scientific  dis- 


THE  SUGAR    TARIFF.  639 

cussion  of  the  various  insects  that  infest  food,  in  which  occurs 
a  passage  relating  to  sugars,  which  I  quote :  — 

"  The  sugar-mite,  T.  sacchari  [a  magnified  wood-cut  of  which  accom 
panies  the  passage]  is  most  commonly  found  in  brown  sugars.  It  is 
large  enough  to  be  seen  with  the  naked  eye,  and  sometimes  appears  as 
white  specks  in  the  sugar.  It  may  be  detected  by  dissolving  two  or  three 
spoonfuls  of  sugar  in  warm  water  and  allowing  the  solution  to  stand  for 
an  hour  or  so  ;  at  the  end  of  the  time  the  acari  will  be  found  floating  on 
the  surface,  adhering  to  the  sides  of  the  glass,  and  lying  mixed  with  the 
grit  and  dirt  that  always  accumulate  at  the  bottom.  In  ten  grains  of 
sugar  as  many  as  five  hundred  mites  have  been  found,  which  is  at  the 
rate  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  to  the  pound.  Those  who  are 
engaged  in  handling  raw  sugars  are  subject  to  an  eruption  known  as 
'*  grocers'  itch,'  which  is  doubtless  to  be  traced  to  the  presence  of  these 
mites.  They  are  almost  invariably  present  in  unrefined  sugars,  and  may 
be  seen  in  all  stages  of  growth  and  in  every  condition,  alive  and  dead, 
entire  or  broken  in  fragments.  Refined  sugars  are  free  from  them.  This 
is  in  part  due,  perhaps,  to  the  crystals  being  so  hard  as  to  resist  their 
jaws,  but  principally  to  the  absence  of  albumen,  for  without  nitrogenous 
matter  they  cannot  live 

"These  degraded  and  disgusting  forms  are  not  proper  food-stuff;  nor 
is  their  consumption  unavoidable.  Pure  articles,  in  an  undamaged  con 
dition,  do  not  contain  them ;  and  their  presence  in  numbers  in  any 
artiticle  of  food  is  proof  that  it  is  unfit  for  human  use  and  should  be 
rejected."  l 

This  scientific  testimony  is  corroborated  by  the  experience 
of  all  persons  who  manipulate  raw  sugars,  while  no  such  effects 
result  from  the  handling  of  refined  sugars.  For  these  reasons 
the  consumption  of  raw  sugars  in  this  and  in  all  other  civilized 
countries  has  rapidly  fallen  off.  And  so,  although  in  former 
years  a  large  quantity  of  what  is  known  as  grocers'  sugars 
went  directly  into  consumption  without  going  through  the  pro 
cess  of  refining,  the  amount  of  sugars  of  that  class  now  used  has 
been  reduced  to  almost  nothing. 

To  exhibit  something  of  the  magnitude  of  the  refining  indus 
try,  I  state  a  few  facts :  omitting  maple,  sorghum,  and  beet 
sugar,  we  consumed  last  year  in  round  numbers  1,700,000,000 
pounds  of  cane  sugar.  Of  this  amount  we  produced  in  our 
own  country  200,000,000  pounds ;  the  remaining  1,500,000,000 
pounds  were  imported.  Reducing  the  whole  to  tons,  the  pep- 

1  Pages  508,  509. 


640  THE  SUGAR   TARIFF. 

pie  of  the  United  States  consumed  740,000  tons  of  cane  sugar 
last  year,  or  an  average  of  about  forty-five  pounds  to  each  in 
habitant.  Of  all  this  vast  quantity  not  two  per  cent  was  con 
sumed  in  the  raw  or  unrefined  state.  Nearly  all  of  it  passed 
through  some  process  of  refining  to  fit  it  for  the  use  of  our 
people. 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that,  in  addition  to  the  business  of 
cane-planting  and  sugar-making,  there  has  grown  up  in  this 
country  the  industry  of  sugar-refining,  the  importance  of  which 
may  be  shown  by  a  few  additional  facts.  There  are  25,000 
laborers  in  the  United  States  to-day  employed  in  the  business 
of  refining  sugar  and  fitting  it  for  use,  in  addition  to  those  em 
ployed  by  the  sugar-producers.  In  this  work  are  employed 
coopers,  blacksmiths,  mechanics,  machinists,  and  other  classes  of 
laborers.  They  consume  annually  30,000,000  pounds  of  bone- 
dust,  18,000  kegs  of  nails,  30,000  car-loads  of  staves,  and  300,000 
tons  of  coal.  In  this  statement  I  do  not  take  into  account  the 
refining  done  by  Louisiana  planters  in  preparing  their  products 
for  market,  though  a  large  majority  of  the  sugar-growers  have 
connected  with  their  mills  some  form  of  refining.  I  have  stated 
these  facts  to  show  the  extent  of  the  two  home  industries  which 
we  should  keep  in  view  in  any  legislation  on  the  subject. 

The  third  interest  is  our  foreign  commerce,  of  which  only  a 
word  needs  to  be  said.  We  are  compelled  to  buy  abroad  more 
than  85  per  cent  of  all  our  sugar.  We  buy  it  from  tropical 
countries  with  which,  on  every  ground  of  public  policy,  we 
ought  to  maintain  healthy  and  active  relations  of  trade.  If  we 
are  able,  by  our  superior  skill,  to  refine  their  low-grade  sugars 
more  cheaply  than  our  neighbors,  and  send  them  back  with  the 
added  value  of  American  labor,  it  will  strengthen  us  industri 
ally  and  commercially;  and  the  fact  that  our  refining  interest 
has  grown  to  such  perfection  that  we  have  been  able  to  sell  in 
a  single  year  to  tropical  countries  about  70,000,000  pounds  of 
refined  sugar,  is  a  gratifying  one  on  every  account.  No  change 
should  be  made  in  the  law  which  will  injure  our  commercial 
prospects  in  this  direction. 

The  fourth  interest,  one  of  vital  importance,  is  that  of  the 
consumers  of  sugar.  They  are  not  a  class,  but  the  whole  pop 
ulation  of  the  United  States;  and  there  must  be  reasons  of 
controlling  power  that  will  justify  any  considerable  tax  on  an 
article  of  food  of  such  universal  consumption  and  of  such  prime 


THE   SUGAR    TARIFF.  641 

necessity  as  sugar.  That  reason  has  been  found  partly  in  the 
necessity  for  revenue,  but  chiefly  in  the  purpose  of  enabling  our 
people  to  become  self-supporting,  and  as  far  as  possible  to  pro 
duce  their  own  sugars,  that  they  may  not  be  dependent  upon 
foreign  countries  for  so  important  an  article  of  food.  In  short, 
the  chief  reason  for  the  tax  is  that  American  labor  may  find 
employment  in  producing  and  preparing  food  for  American 
tables. 

The  duty  on  sugar  has  been  levied  in  various  forms.  Up  to 
1846  sugars  were  classified  into  raw  and  refined  sugar,  with  a 
low  rate  on  the  raw  and  a  higher  rate  on  the  refined.  But  as  the 
processes  of  manufacture  and  refining  have  been  improved, 
additional  grades  have  been  made  by  the  law  from  time  to  time 
to  meet  the  new  conditions.  It  was  found  in  1870  that  the  lower 
grades  embraced  so  wide  a  range  of  products  that  a  uniform  tax 
upon  one  whole  class  was  neither  equitable  nor  just;  and  hence 
the  law  was  so  amended  as  to  increase  the  number  of  classes 
and  make  the  tax  ad  valorem  in  principle,  but  specific  in  form. 
Sugar  in  all  its  forms  was  graded  into  seven  classes,  arranged 
in  the  order  of  their  value,  and  a  specific  duty  was  levied  upon 
each  class,  the  lowest  rate  being  imposed  upon  the  lowest  grade, 
and  a  higher  rate  upon  each  ascending  grade.  The  tax  thus 
adjusted  has  been  an  efficient  means  of  raising  revenue.  I  have 
already  shown  that  it  produces  more  than  $37,000,000  a  year. 
That  it  has  afforded  sufficient  protection  to  the  producers  and 
refiners  of  sugar  will  not  be  denied.  The  theory  of  protection 
may  perhaps  be  thus  summarized.  On  any  imported  article 
which  comes  in  competition  with  an  American  product  the  rate 
of  tax  should  be  proportionate  to  the  amount  of  human  labor 
which  has  been  expended  upon  it  at  the  time  of  importation. 
That  which  represents  the  least  labor  should  bear  the  least 
burden  of  tax;  that  which  represents  the  most  labor  should  bear 
the  greatest  tax.  This  principle  has  generally  prevailed  in  all 
our  tariff  laws  relating  to  sugar. 

As  the  law  now  stands,  the  duty  is  adjusted  by  dividing  all 
sugars  into  seven  grades.  First,  the  lowest,  crudest,  and  cheap 
est  product,  which  comes  in  liquid  form  and  is  known  as  melada. 
On  that  we  levy  a  specific  duty  equal  to  about  40  per  cent  ad 
valorem.  Until  a  recent  period  all  sugar  was  manufactured  by 
the  simple  process  of  boiling  down  the  cane-juice  and  clarifying 
the  product  by  means  of  clay.  By  that  process  the  purity  and 

VOL.    II.  41 


642  THE  SUGAR    TARIFF. 

strength,  and  hence  the  value,  of  all  crystallized  sugar  were 
exhibited  by  its  color.  Here,  for  example,  [holding  up  a  speci 
men,]  is  a  specimen  of  the  lowest  and  crudest  forms  of  crystal 
lized  sugar.  Gentlemen  will  notice  its  dark  color.  It  is  known 
and  graded  as  Dutch  standard  No.  7,  and  forms  the  second  class 
in  our  present  law.  Here  [holding  up  another  specimen]  is  a 
higher  grade,  embodying  more  human  labor,  having  less  im 
purity  in  it,  and  fit  for  use.  It  is  known  as  Dutch  standard  No. 
20.  Ranging  between  these  two  specimens  are  several  grades, 
the  seven  classes  of  the  present  law  being,  —  first,  melada ; 
second,  No.  7  and  under;  third,  all  above  No.  7  and  not  above 
No.  10 ;  fourth,  all  above  No.  10  and  not  above  No.  13 ;  fifth,  all 
above  No.  13  and  not  above  No.  16;  sixth,  all  above  No.  16  and 
not  above  No.  20 ;  seventh,  all  above  No.  20. 

The  theory  of  the  law  is,  that  these  various  grades  of  sugar 
represent  a  scale  of  increasing  value,  an  increasing  amount  of 
labor ;  and  therefore  the  higher  the  grade,  the  heavier  the  duty. 
For  ease  of  comparison  I  reduce  the  specific  rates  to  ad  valorem, 
and  show  the  status  of  the  existing  law.  On  the  lowest  form  of 
sugar,  melada,  the  rate  is  about  40  per  cent  ad  valorem  ;  on 
the  next  grade,  which  includes  all  not  above  the  Dutch  standard 
No.  7,  it  is  about  45  per  cent;  on  the  next  grade,  including  No. 
10,  it  is  about  46^  per  cent;  on  sugars  between  Nos.  10  and  13 
it  is  49^  per  cent;  between  13  and  16,  6SJ/2  per  cent;  and  so 
on,  the  rate  increasing  according  to  the  value  of  the  sugar  and 
the  amount  of  labor  expended  upon  it.  This  method  of  tax 
ation  seems  to  be  fair  and  just;  for  if  the  principle  of  protec 
tion  be  applied  to  sugar  at  all,  it  ought  to  be  applied  on  some 
plan  of  graduation  which  imposes  the  heaviest  burden  upon 
those  grades  which  involve  the  most  labor,  and  which  are  the 
most  valuable. 

I  believe  the  correctness  of  the  principle  of  the  present  law  is 
not  called  in  question.  Although  the  aggregate  rate  of  duty  is 
high,  consumers  are  not  complaining;  for  the  sugar  used  by 
our  people  is  cheaper  to-day  than  it  has  been  in  any  previous 
period  of  our  history.  In  1869  the  average  price  in  the  United 
States  of  all  grades  of  sugar  was  fifteen  cents  a  pound.  In  1878 
the  average  price  was  nine  cents  a  pound.  A  dollar  will  to 
day  buy  more  sweetening  than  it  would  have  bought  at  any 
previous  time  in  our  history.  A  day's  work,  even,  will  buy 
more  sweetening  to-day  than  it  would  have  bought  ten  years 


THE  SUGAR    TARIFF.  643 

ago.  Therefore  the  consumers  of  sugar  in  this  country  are  not 
complaining  that  the  rate  of  tax  is  too  high.  The  planters  of 
Louisiana  are  not  complaining  that  they  are  not  sufficiently  pro 
tected  by  the  present  law ;  for  they  get  an  average  protection 
of  62^  per  cent,  far  greater  than  we  get  on  most  of  our  North 
ern  products. 

Who,  then,  is  complaining,  if  neither  the  producers  nor  the 
consumers  of  sugar  complain?  The  Treasury  alone  is  now 
making  complaint.  The  Secretary  tells  us  that  new  processes 
of  manufacture  have  enabled  foreign  producers  to  produce  sugar 
of  as  high  a  grade  of  sweetness  and  as  pure  as  this  specimen 
[showing  a  light-colored  sugar],  but  which  has  a  color  as  low  as 
this  [showing  a  dark  sugar] ,  and  therefore,  as  the  letter  of  the 
law  fixes  the  rate  of  duty  on  the  basis  of  color  alone,  high- 
grade  sugars  in  sweetness  and  value,  but  low-grade  in  color,  are 
brought  in  at  a  rate  below  the  intent  of  the  law,  and  so  the  reve 
nue  is  defrauded.  Two  recent  processes  of  manufacture,  known 
as  the  centrifugal  process  and  the  vacuum-pan  process,  have  so 
changed  the  character  of  the  product,  especially  in  Cuba,  that 
high-priced  sugar  comes  in  graded  at  low  rates ;  and  of  that  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  complains.  He  says,  and  so  say  his 
experts,  that  we  are  probably  losing  from  four  to  five  million 
dollars  of  revenue  a  year  in  consequence  of  this  undervaluation 
of  sugar. 

To  remedy  this  defect  in  the  law  should  be  the  sole  object  of 
the  present  bill.  To  whom  should  we  look  for  the  suggestion 
of  a  practical  and  efficient  remedy  for  the  only  evil  complained 
of?  First  of  all,  we  should  look  to  the  officer  who  is  charged 
by  law  with  the  duty  of  collecting  the  revenue.  And  he,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  has  proposed  a  remedy.  He  does 
not  ask  us  to  change  the  rate  of  duty.  He  does  not  ask  us  to 
raise  or  reduce  the  present  rate.  All  he  does  ask  is  that  we 
give  him  the  power  to  prevent  undervaluations  which  he  cannot 
prevent  as  the  law  now  stands.  He  does  not  complain  that  the 
color  test  has  been  proved  altogether  worthless.  It  is  still  as 
valuable  as  ever  for  all  the  higher  grade  sugars ;  but  the  two 
new  processes  of  which  I  have  spoken  enable  manufacturers 
to  evade  the  spirit  of  the  law  in  the  lower  grades,  especially 
in  grades  below  No.  10  Dutch  standard;  and  he  declares  that, 
if  we  will  authorize  him  to  apply  other  tests  which  will  correct 
the  undervaluation  in  these  lower  grades,  he  can  collect  the 


644  THE  SUGAR   TARIFF. 

revenue  fairly  and  fully,  according  to  the  original  intent  of  the 
law,  without  any  change  of  the  rates  or  change  of  the  grades 
already  established.  In  a  word,  he  asks  us  to  give  him  the 
requisite  authority  and  means  for  enforcing  the  present  law 
according  to  its  real  intent  and  purpose. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  believe  that  I  have  stated  all  the  trouble 
complained  of  in  the  present  law.  We  are  not  asked  to  legis 
late  either  for  the  consumer  or  the  producer,  for  Louisiana,  for 
New  York,  or  for  the  Great  West.  We  are  asked  to  legislate 
to  protect  the  Treasury  against  loss  of  revenue  by  undervalua 
tion.  That  is  all.  And  what  is  the  remedy  proposed  ?  The 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  proposes  what  I  now  offer  on  behalf 
of  the  minority  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  as  a  sub 
stitute  for  the  pending  bill :  — 

"  Be  it  enacted,  S*c.t  That  from  and   after  the day  of  

1 8  79,  in  the  classification  of  imported  sugars  for  assessment  of  duty,  any 
sugar  which  shall  not  be  above  No.  to  Dutch  standard  in  color,  which 
shall  contain  more  than  ninety-two  per  cent  of  crystallizable  sugar  shall 
pay  the  rate  of  duty  now  chargeable  to  sugar  above  No.  10,  and  not 
above  No.  13,  Dutch  standard  in  color,  and  the  per  centum  of  crystalliz 
able  sugar  shall  be  ascertained  by  the  polariscope  or  such  other  means  as 
may  be  prescribed  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury." 

The  Secretary  simply  asks  us  so  to  amend  the  law  as  to 
give  him  power  to  superadd  to  the  color  test  the  polariscope 
or  other  tests  which  he  may  find  effective  in  making  crystalliza 
ble  strength  and  color  correspond.  That  is  all.  If  there  had 
been  no  virtual  evasion  of  the  color  test,  there  would  have  been 
no  need  of  any  change  in  the  law ;  and  it  is  only  to  meet  that 
evasion  that  he  asks  authority  to  do  what  he  cannot  now  do, 
add  to  the  color  test  the  polariscope  test,  or  any  other  scientific 
test  he  may  choose.  It  is  proposed  to  apply  the  polariscope 
test  to  all  sugars  below  No.  10  wherever  found  necessary. 

MR.  ROBBINS.  How  will  the  officers  of  the  government  know  the  need 
of  applying  the  test  ? 

I  will  tell  the  gentleman.  Whenever  an  imported  sugar 
bears  evidence  on  its  face  that  the  color  and  strength  are  in 
harmony,  the  color  test  will  remain  undisturbed ;  but  when 
for  any  reason  the  inspectors  of  the  revenue,  or  other  officers 
of  the  government,  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  sugar  is  of 
a  higher  grade  than  its  color  would  indicate,  they  will  apply 


THE   SUGAR    TARIFF.  645 

the  polariscope  and  correct  the  valuation.  The  bill  I  offer  is 
the  simplest  and  plainest  method  that  can  be  had  to  enable  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  enforce  existing  law. 

MR.  ROBBINS.  Who  is  to  determine  whether  the  sugar  looks  upon  its 
face  as  sweet  as  it  is  represented  to  be  ? 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  by  his  regulations  and  orders 
to  his  officers  appointed  for  that  purpose.  What  the  gentle 
man  suggests  would  be  equally  applicable  to  his  own  bill.  The 
gentleman  himself  in  his  own  bill  recognizes  the  Dutch  stand 
ards  of  color,  and  how  is  he  going  to  determine  whether  any 
given  sugar  is  above  or  below  No.  13  Dutch  standard?  How 
does  he  draw  the  line  in  his  own  bill,  and  who  is  to  determine 
whether  the  sugar  is  above  or  below  that  standard  ? 

MR.  ROBBINS.  Who  is  to  determine  whether  the  sugar  imported  is 
higher  or  lower  than  No.  7  ? 

I  answered  the  gentleman  before;  the  executive  officers  of 
the  government  charged  with  the  office  of  collecting  these  du 
ties,  under  the  direction  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and 
under  the  rules  and  regulations  which  he  may  make. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  whatever  difficulties  the  gentleman  from 
North  Carolina  may  have,  or  you  may  have,  or  I  may  have,  it 
must  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  officers  who  will  discharge 
this  duty  are  intelligent  and  vigilant.  The  present  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  tells  us,  that  with  the  simple  measure  I  have 
offered  he  can  administer  the  law  and  collect  the  revenue. 
That  being  so,  I  do  not  think  it  quite  becomes  us  to  say  that 
he  cannot  do  it,  and  deny  him  the  power  that  he  asks  for,  and 
all  that  he  asks  for,  to  enable  him  to  put  five  millions  more  rev 
enue  into  the  treasury  without  increasing  the  rate  of  taxation. 
For  one,  I  am  unwilling  to  take  upon  my  shoulders  the  respon 
sibility  of  refusing  the  Secretary  the  means  he  asks  for  to  en 
able  him  to  collect  the  revenue,  and,  instead,  give  him  a  remedy 
of  my  own  invention.  Suppose  he  fails ;  he  can  very  well  say 
that  Congress  refused  the  instrument  he  wanted,  and  gave  him 
one  of  their  own  devising.  In  that  case  the  responsibility  will 
fall,  not  upon  him,  but  upon  Congress  for  forcing  upon  him  a 
plan  he  did  not  ask  for  or  recommend. 

I  say,  therefore,  on  general  principles,  that  when  an  executive 
officer,  whom  we  have  a  right  to  trust  for  his  intelligence,  skill, 


646  THE  SUGAR   TARIFF. 

and  character  as  a  public  man,  comes  to  us  and  asks  for  a 
certain  definite,  plain  provision  of  law,  we  ought  to  have  very 
strong  reasons  of  our  own  if  we  do  not  grant  it;  especially 
when  he  asks  us  not  to  change  the  rate  of  duty,  not  to  tear 
down  the  structure  of  the  law,  but  simply  to  give  him  the 
means  to  enforce  it.  This  is  the  ground  on  which,  in  the  first 
place,  I  plant  my  argument  for  the  amendment  I  have  offered 
as  against  the  new  and  larger,  and  as  I  think  very  perilous 
scheme,  proposed  by  the  majority  of  the  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means. 

Let  us  next  consider  the  scheme  which  they  have  offered.  I 
want  gentlemen  to  understand  that  of  the  seven  lower  grades  of 
sugar  as  they  now  stand  in  the  law,  each  paying  a  different  rate 
of  duty,  and  a  rate  increasing  as  the  sugar  advances  in  quality, 
it  is  proposed,  by  the  bill  of  the  gentleman  from  North  Caro 
lina,  to  consolidate  into  one  the  first  four,  —  that  is,  melada, 
and  the  three  lower  grades  of  sugar,  —  and  to  provide  that  they 
shall  be  put  on  a  dead  level  of  equality,  and  shall  pay  a  duty 
of  2.40  cents  per  pound.  This  is  a  radical  and  sweeping  change 
in  the  present  law,  for  it  covers  about  ninety  per  cent  of  all 
sugars  imported. 

To  show  how  important  to  the  revenue  those  four  lower 
grades  are,  I  state  a  fact  furnished  by  the  Bureau  of  Statistics. 
It  is  this:  that  out  of  $37,000,000  of  revenue  received  last  year 
from  sugar,  $34,955,000,  almost  ninety  per  cent,  was  received 
from  sugar  of  the  three  lower  grades.  I  cannot  emphasize  this 
fact  too  strongly  in  considering  the  radical  change  proposed  by 
the  Robbins  bill.  On  the  grades  under  No.  10  Dutch  stan 
dard,  there  were  received  $35,000,000  out  of  $37,000,000; 
and  of  the  grades  under  No.  7,  I  think  about  $14,000,000  or 
$15,000,000.  But  from  No.  10  down,  we  get  $35,000,000  of 
the  $37,000,000  collected  on  sugar.  What  effect  this  change 
will  have  on  the  revenues  it  is  difficult  to  say;  but  I  have 
no  doubt  it  will  wholly  prevent  the  importation  of  the  lower 
grades,  will  increase  the  price  of  sugar  to  the  consumer,  and 
probably  decrease  the  revenue.  At  all  events,  it  is  a  dangerous 
experiment  to  make  in  view  of  our  present  financial  necessities. 

But  I  desire  to  show  how  it  will  operate  as  a  protective 
measure.  I  have  already  shown  that,  by  our  present  law,  sugar 
pays  a  duty  of  40  per  cent,  45  per  cent,  46  per  cent,  49  per 
cent,  68  per  cent,  &c.,  increasing  in  rate  from  the  lower  to  the 


THE   SUGAR    TARIFF.  647 

higher  grades.  Now  note  the  effect  of  consolidating  the  lower 
grades,  as  proposed  in  the  Robbins  bill,  and  fixing  the  single 
rate  of  2.40  cents  per  pound.  Melada,  which  now  pays  about 
40  per  cent,  will  then  pay  80  per  cent  ad  valorem  ;  the  second 
grade  (that  is,  sugar  not  above  No.  7),  which  now  pays  45  per 
cent,  will  then  pay  68^3  per  cent  ad  valorem  ;  the  next  grade 
will  pay  60  per  cent,  the  next  higher  53  per  cent,  the  next 
higher  45  per  cent,  and  the  next,  42  per  cent  ad  valorem. 

In  short,  the  Robbins  bill  is  an  inverted  cone;  the  lowest 
grade  of  sugar  must  bear  the  highest  rate  of  duty,  and  the 
highest  grade  the  lowest  rate.  In  other  words,  the  less  labor 
there  is  in  the  imported  product,  the  heavier  the  rate  of  tax ; 
and  the  more  labor  —  foreign  labor,  remember  —  there  is  in  it, 
the  lighter  the  rate  of  tax.  The  fundamental  doctrine  of  pro 
tection  is  completely  overturned  and  reversed  by  this  bill.  Yet 
it  is  by  no  means  a  free-trade  bill.  It  so  happens  that,  on  the 
grades  upon  which  the  extreme  high  rate  of  duty  is  imposed, 
our  friends  from  Louisiana  will  receive  a  very  considerably 
larger  protective  duty  than  the  present  law  gives  them.  Hence 
the  favor  with  which  this  proposition  is  received  by  gentlemen 
from  that  portion  of  the  country. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  object  to  this  bill,  first,  because  it  vio 
lates  the  fundamental  principles  of  a  just  and  equitable  taxa 
tion;  and  I  object  to  it,  secondly,  because  it  puts  a  prohibitory 
duty  upon  the  low-grade  sugars  that  are  refined  by  American 
skill,  and  that  become  the  cheap  sugar  in  common  use  among 
our  people.  It  injures  some  of  our  industrial  interests,  and  gives 
an  unreasonable  protection  to  others.  It  violates  the  canons  of 
free  trade  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  protection  on  the  other.  It 
destroys  absolutely  the  business  of  refining  the  cheap  low-grade 
sugars,  and  will  increase  the  cost  of  sugars  most  in  use.  Let 
me  illustrate  still  further. 

How  is  it  that  this  day,  while  I  speak  to  you,  sugar  is  cheaper 
in  the  United  States  than  it  has  ever  been  before?  Because  we 
have  built  up  in  this  country  a  great  industry,  in  which  we  are 
eclipsing  the  world.  When  the  French  manufacturers  were  at 
Philadelphia,  at  our  Centennial,  they  were  amazed  to  see  that 
our  sugar  products  there  rivalled  the  best  products  of  the  Old 
World.  They  did  not  understand  how  it  had  been  done.  But 
it  was  the  result  of  the  same  skill  that  has  enabled  America  to 
surpass  so  many  other  countries  in  the  recent  exposition  at 


648  THE   SUGAR    TARIFF. 

Paris,  and  to  carry  off  more  medals,  in  proportion  to  the  num 
ber  of  her  exhibitors,  than  any  other  five  countries  of  the 
globe. 

We  were  so  successful  in  the  refining  of  sugar  that,  two 
years  ago,  we  were  exporting  70,000,000  pounds  of  our  refined 
product.  It  will  become,  if  we  are  allowed  to  carry  on  this 
industry,  a  great  element  in  our  export  trade.  We  are  trading 
with  Cuba  and  South  America;  we  are  compelled  to  depend 
largely  upon  the  tropics  for  our  raw  material.  Is  it  not  wise 
for  us  to  be  able  to  send  back  the  refined  product  in  exchange? 
Or  shall  we  so  legislate  as  to  give  an,  undue  protection  to  our 
Louisiana  planters,  and  drive  the  refining  business  out  of  the 
United  States,  allowing  Cuba,  England,  and  other  countries  to 
do  our  refining  for  us?  Refined  sugar  we  must  have.  The  day 
is  gone  by  when  our  people  will  eat  the  animals  which  abound 
in  the  raw,  unmanufactured  sugars  of  the  world.  I  say,  therefore, 
that  this  bill  sins  against  the  consumer,  and  against  the  refining 
interest,  and  unreasonably  protects  the  producing  interest  of 
the  country.  Let  me  illustrate  a  little  further. 

In  the  Philippine  Islands  there  is  a  class  of  people  who  have 
not  enough  intelligence  and  resource  to  take  the  first  simple 
step  toward  clarifying  sugar.  They  have  no  limestone  on  their 
islands ;  they  cannot  even  furnish  the  lime  to  drop  into  the 
vats  partially  to  clarify  the  sugar.  But  they  take  the  juice  of 
the  cane  and  boil  it  down  in  the  crudest,  rudest,  simplest  way, 
by  labor  the  cheapest  and  least  skilful;  and  when  they  have 
reduced  it  to  a  black,  cheap  form  of  crystallized  sugar,  —  the 
dirtiest  yet  known,  —  they  put  it  up  in  sacks  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds  each,  so  that  a  man  can  carry  it  on  his  back 
down  to  the  landing,  to  be  shipped  away.  Our  people  are 
buying  largely  of  that  low  grade  of  sugar  from  the  Philippine 
Islands.  We  are  also  buying  such  sugar  from  other  countries 
where  the  production  is  of  a  low  grade.  This  we  bring  here,  and 
by  our  skill  and  labor  make  it  into  a  cheap,  clean  sugar  for  table 
use.  Shall  we  now  by  law  impose  a  prohibitory  duty  on  all 
that  trade  and  industry,  —  an  80  per  cent  rate,  or  a  65  per  cent 
rate,  —  keeping  it  all  out,  and  bring  in  only  the  sugar  that 
has  been  refined  by  the  higher  and  more  intelligent  processes 
of  our  nearer  neighbors,  thus  cutting  off  the  whole  business  of 
refining  these  low-grade  sugars?  I  hope  not. 

I  know  there  is  some  controversy  among  the  refiners  them- 


THE  SUGAR    TARIFF.  649 

selves.  Some  of  them  —  indeed,  quite  a  number  of  most  es 
timable  gentlemen  —  say,  "  Let  this  bill  pass  and  we  can  do  a 
better  refining  business  than  is  done  now;  we  can  refine  the 
high-grade  sugars."  Now,  I  am  glad  to  have  those  gentlemen 
work  the  higher  grades  of  sugar  and  make  a  success  of  them ; 
but  I  see  no  reason  why  our  refineries  should  not  also  take  the 
lowest  grade  of  sugar,  that  which  has  the  least  value,  the  least 
labor  in  it,  and  bring  it  up  by  our  American  labor  to  a  cheap, 
useful,  merchantable  form ;  and  therefore  I  am  unwilling  to  de 
stroy  one  class  of  refiners  for  the  sake  of  helping  another.  I 
do  not  believe  it  is  necessary  to  destroy  either.  I  regret  that 
the  refiners  do  not  unite  on  some  common  ground  on  which  all 
could  have  a  fair  chance.  But  there  seems  to  be  an  internecine 
war  among  them ;  and  with  such  a  war  I  have  no  sympathy. 

Having  now  stated  my  objections  in  brief  to  the  bill  of  the 
gentleman  from  North  Carolina,  I  turn  to  answer  his  criticisms 
of  the  measure  I  have  proposed,  which  is  the  bill  of  the  Treasury 
Department. 

The  gentleman  from  North  Carolina  says  that  the  polariscope 
is  an  unsatisfactory  instrument,  and  that,  however  perfect  it 
might  be,  there  is  serious  difficulty  in  sampling  the  sugars  to 
be  tested.  I  admit  that  there  is  trouble  about  sampling.  Sup 
pose  a  hogshead  of  sugar  is  allowed  to  remain  lying  on  its  side 
for  a  month,  and  the  sampler  bores  a  hole  in  the  hogshead  and 
draws  out  a  sample  close  to  the  bottom.  He  gets  a  wet,  black, 
coarse  sugar.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  draws  his  sample  from 
the  top,  he  gets  a  dry,  lighter-colored,  better  grade  of  sugar. 
As  a  matter  of  course,  if  the  sampler  has  been  bought  by  some 
importer,  he  may  take  the  samples  out  of  the  bottom  of  the 
cask  only,  which  will  not  represent  the  character  of  the  whole. 
But  whether  the  system  proposed  by  the  gentleman  from  North 
Carolina  or  that  of  the  Treasury  Department  prevails,  we  must 
leave  the  details  of  carrying  it  out  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury.  Under  the  regulations  of  the  Treasury  Department  an 
official  is  not  permitted  to  sample  a  hogshead  of  sugar  in  one 
spot  only.  He  samples  above,  and  below,  and  at  the  centre ; 
the  different  samples,  being  mixed  into  one,  make  a  pretty  fair 
average  sample  of  the  cask ;  and  then,  taking  every  tenth  cask 
of  the  cargo,  a  pretty  fair  set  of  samples  of  the  whole  cargo  is 
obtained.  But  the  trouble  about  sampling  inheres  in  any  graded 
system,  and  no  one  proposes  to  abolish  all  the  grades. 


650  THE  SUGAR    TARIFF. 

But  the  gentleman  thinks  the  polariscope  test  is  good  for 
nothing.  I  have  some  evidence  on  that  subject. 

In  the  first  place,  Mr.  Speaker,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
about  two  years  ago,  sent  to  the  National  Academy  of  Sciences, 
of  which  Professor  Henry  was  President,  the  polariscope,  or  po- 
larimeter,  which  is  a  scientific  instrument,  with  the  request  that 
it  be  examined,  and  a  report  made  as  to  the  advisability  of  its 
use  by  the  government  in  determining  the  value  of  sugars  for 
revenue  purposes.  After  a  thorough  examination,  and  with  the 
assistance  of  persons  well  qualified  to  judge,  Professor  Henry 
reported  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  on  the  5th  of  Feb 
ruary,  1878,  as  follows:  — 

"  After  due  deliberation  on  the  subject,  the  following  are  our  final 
conclusions :  — 

"That  the  quantity  of  crystallizable  sugar  in  imported  raw  sugars 
should  be  estimated  by  the  polarimeter,  which  is  an  entirely  trustworthy 
instrument,  and  one  the  use  of  which  can  readily  be  taught  to  any  intel 
ligent  person  of  ordinary  education. 

"  If  the  polarimeter  should  be  adopted  as  the  measure  of  the  value  of 
sugar,  a  supply  of  these  instruments  should  be  obtained  from  Germany, 
and  their  use  taught  to  the  appraisers  by  a  person  thoroughly  acquainted 
with  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  instrument.  The  accuracy  of  the 
instruments  themselves  should  also  be  tested,  and  the  appraisers  from 
time  to  time  be  examined  as  to  their  skill  in  the  use  of  the  instru 
ment." 

This  is  the  opinion  of  one  of  our  most  eminent  scientific  men  ; 
and  when  he  says  that  a  layman,  a  man  without  special  skill, 
can  be  taught  to  use  this  instrument  accurately,  and  that  it  is 
"  entirely  trustworthy,"  I  have  not  quite  the  courage  to  say  it  is 
not  so.  But  that  is  not  all.  I  turn  from  the  test  of  science  to 
the  test  of  practice.  I  have  before  me  a  memorial  containing 
the  resolutions  adopted  by  the  importers,  refiners,  and  dealers 
in  sugar  in  Boston,  signed  by  sixty-six  firms,  representing,  I  am 
told,  every  refiner  in  that  city.  They  speak  for  themselves. 

"BOSTON,  January  30,  1879. 

"  At  an  adjourned  meeting  of  the  importers,  refiners,  and  dealers 
in  sugar,  held  this  day,  the  following  resolutions  were  unanimously 
adopted :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  duties  on  sugar  should  be  assessed  by  a  gradu 
ated  scale  of  specific  rates,  adjusted  as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  ad  valo 
rem  principle,  and  that  this  can  be  done  by  the  use  of  the  polariscope 


THE   SUGAR    TARIFF.  651 

better  than  in  any  other  way.  Its  general  use  in  buying  and  selling  in  all 
civilized  countries  proves  that  it  is  less  complicated  and  more  reliable 
than  any  other  method  of  determining  the  actual  value  of  sugar. 

"  Resolved,  That  duties  ought  to  be  so  regulated  and  assessed  as  to 
encourage  the  largest  possible  supplies  of  sugar  from  all  places  of  pro 
duction,  and  not  in  any  way  made  so  as  to  favor  one  place  more  than 
another ;  and  that  the  amount  of  revenue  now  derived  from  the  lower 
grades  of  sugar  cannot  be  increased  without  injustice  and  injury  to  the 
consumers,  as  it  is  now  too  high  in  proportion  to  high  grades. 

"  JOHN  W.  CANDLER,  Chairman. 
WM.  H.  GREELEY,  Secretary. 

"  We  the  undersigned  importers,  refiners,  and  dealers  in  sugar,  ap 
prove  of  the  above  resolutions. 

"  [Signed  by  sixty-six  firms.]" 

The  testimony  of  these  gentlemen  is  that  the  grading  of 
sugars  can  be  better  effected  by  the  polariscope  than  in  any 
other  way.  Its  general  use  in  buying  and  selling  sugar  strongly 
attests  its  practicability. 

A  prominent  gentleman  from  Boston,  who  is  one  of  the  sign 
ers  of  this  memorial,  stated  to  the  Committee-  of  Ways  and 
Means  that  during  the  last  season  he  bought  twenty-six  large 
cargoes  of  sugar  from  Cuba  on  telegraphic  orders  and  by  the 
polariscope  test.  It  was  done  in  this  way.  He  cabled  to  the 
manufacturer  in  Cuba,  "  Send  me  so  many  hogsheads  of  su 
gar  testing  92°  or  94°  polariscope  test,"  and  the  sugars  came. 
The  Cuban  seller  applied  the  polariscope  test  when  he  shipped 
them,  and  the  Boston  buyer  applied  it  when  they  were  received. 
The  record  of  those  twenty-six  cargoes  shows  that,  if  the  duty 
had  been  assessed  by  the  test  of  the  polariscope,  there  would 
have  been  but  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  dollars'  difference 
in  an  aggregate  of  half  a  million  dollars  between  the  Cuban 
test  and  the  Boston  test.  There  were  variations  in  the  tests 
of  single  cargoes,  but  all  the  shipments  showed  that,  if  we 
had  followed  the  Cuban  test  alone  in  levying  the  duties,  the 
amount  would  have  varied  but  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
dollars  from  the  amount  based  on  the  Boston  test,  the  parties 
having  adverse  interests,  —  one  the  buyer,  the  other  the  seller. 
Stronger  proof  of  the  practicability  of  the  polariscope  test  of 
sugar  can  hardly  be  conceived. 

MR.  MILLS.  I  understand  my  friend  from  Ohio  and  the  signers  of  that 
resolution  to  state  that  the  polariscope  is  the  full  test  of  the  value  of 
sugar. 


652  THE   SUGAR    TARIFF. 

Yes,  of  the  crystallizable  strength,  and  therefore  of  the  value 
of  sugar. 

MR.  MILLS.  Then  why  not  lay  the  duty  on  the  value  of  sugar,  and  let 
that  be  reached  by  the  polariscope,  or  any  other  means  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  may  adopt  ? 

The  Boston  dealers  asked  the  committee  to  adopt  precisely 
the  measure  which  my  friend  suggests,  and  that  will  be  offered 
by  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts.1  They  proposed  that' 
the  duties  on  sugar  should  be  laid  on  the  percentage  of  saccha 
rine  strength ;  for  instance,  one  per  cent  of  saccharine  strength 
should  pay  so  much,  and  two  per  cent  twice  as  much,  and  so  on 
through  all  the  grades,  to  be  tested  by  the  polariscope. 

MR.  MILLS.    Then  the  polariscope  tests  the  value  of  sugar  ? 

Yes ;  and  theoretically  they  are  right.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
practice,  I  think  —  and  this  was  the  opinion  of  most  of  the  Com 
mittee  of  Ways  and  Means  —  that  the  Boston  plan  would  make 
the  sugar  tariff  too  complicated,  for  there  would  be  one  cargo 
having  a  small  per  cent  less  strength  than  another,  and  a  differ 
ent  rate  of  duty.  The  rates  would  be  too  numerous  and  com 
plicated.  We  therefore  preferred  to  retain  the  existing  seven 
grades,  and  apply  the  polariscope  to  them. 

MR.  TUCKER.     The  gentleman  from  Ohio  has  spoken  of  the  character 
of  the  polariscope  as  a  test,  and  says  it  is  a  test  of  the  quantity  of  sac 
charine  matter.     Is  it  not  rather  a  test  of  the  crystallizable  quality  of  the . 
sugar  ? 

My  colleague  is  right ;  I  should  have  used  the  word  crystal 
lizable.  That  is  the  language  of  my  amendment. 

MR.  TUCKER.  Is  it  not  true  that  we  were  told  in  the  committee,  so  far 
from  its  being  a  test  of  the  quantity  of  saccharine  matter,  that  the  sugar 
not  crystallizable  had  so  much  saccharine  matter  that  it  was  used  by  all 
the  refiners? 

I  thank  my  colleague ;  for  I  was  about  to  omit  what,  if  left 
out,  would  have  made  my  statement  incomplete.  The  chief 
element  of  value  in  sugar  is  sugar  crystals ;  but  there  is  also 
another  element,  which  is  uncrystallizable,  but  still  sweet,  known 
as  glucose,  which  will  be  found  in  the  most  perfect  sugar  of 
commerce.  Glucose  is  not  deleterious,  is  sweet,  and  is  found 
in  all  sugar.  The  chief  element,  and  that  with  which  we  are 
mainly  concerned,  is  of  course  the  crystal,  the  crystallized 
1  Mr.  Banks. 


THE   SUGAR    TARIFF.  653 

sugar.  Therefore,  in  our  bill  we  apply  our  test  to  the  crystal- 
lizable  strength  of  sugar,  and  that  the  polariscope  detects.-  That 
is  what  we  are  legislating  about;  not  about  glucose  and  other 
elements  that  enter  into  sugar.  The  main  product  is  crystal 
lized  sugar,  and  that  is  perfectly  tested  by  the  polariscope.  I 
do  not  say  that  the  polariscope  is  a  perfect  test  in  every  re 
spect;  but  I  say,  in  the  present  stage  of  scientific  knowledge, 
it  is  the  best  test  we  know.  It  is  approved  by  the  highest  sci 
ence  and  by  the  practical  experience  of  our  foremost  dealers  in 
sugar. 

MR.  BUTLER.  I  ask  the  gentleman  if  the  polariscope  gives  any  cor 
rect  test  of  melada,  the  lowest  grade  ? 

It  does,  —  of  its  crystallizable  strength. 

MR.  BUTLER.     But  if  it  is  not  crystallized  ? 

The  melada  question  is  not  important,  for  it  pays  a  specific 
duty  as  the  law  now  stands ;  but  should  crystallizable  sugar  be 
brought  in  mixed  with  melada,  it  would  be  tested  by  the  po 
lariscope.  I  believe  I  have  now  gone  over  the  main  points  in 
this  discussion. 

MR.  ROBBINS.  There  are  no  other  means  but  the  polariscope  which 
can  be  applied  as  a  percentage  test,  except  chemical  analysis,  are  there  ? 

Not  that  I  know  of.  I  ought  to  have  added  that  we  do  not 
confine  the  Secretary  to  the  polariscope  alone.  We  authorize 
him  to  employ  the  polariscope  or  such  other  test  as  he  may  find 
necessary  to  determine  the  real  crystallizable  strength  of  sugar. 
No  doubt  he  will  use  the  polariscope  ordinarily ;  but  if  there  is 
any  doubt  of  its  accuracy  in  any  important  case,  he  can  employ 
a  chemist,  and  make  a  chemical  analysis. 

MR.  ROBBINS.  One  word  more.  The  chemical  analysis  test  is  too 
costly  for  general  use,  is  it  not  ? 

O,  yes ;  it  would  be  too  cumbrous  and  costly  to  be  used 
ordinarily ;  but  it  can  always  be  used  to  verify  the  polariscope 
test  in  any  important  case. 

MR.  ROBBINS.     But  who  is  to  know  that  any  correction  is  needed  ? 

My  friend,  in  that  question,  has  taken  up  the  conflict  of  ages. 
Who  shall  do  anything,  except  the  men  appointed  to  carry  out 
the  law?  Who  shall  find  out  any  blunder,  or  correct  any  wrong, 
unless  you  appoint  somebody  to  do  it?  Congress,  I  take  it, 
can  hardly  determine  the  sweetness  or  strength  of  sugar,  or  the 


654  THE   SUGAR    TARIFF. 

amount  of  glucose  in  it,  unless  we  appoint  an  agent.  The 
Treasury  cannot  do  it,  except  by  its  agents.  In  any  system 
there  will  be  the  trouble  suggested  by  the  gentleman  from 
North  Carolina. 

In  conclusion,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  do  not  want  Congress  to  tinker 
with  the  tariff  ^at  this  time.  That  was  attempted  last  year ;  and 
in  the  remarks  I  made  on  that  occasion  I  denounced  the  sugar 
clause  of  the  bill  then  introduced,  because,  while  there  was  a 
reduction  of  the  rate  on  most  Northern  interests,  the  rate  on 
sugar  was  increased  considerably,  even  up  to  seventy  per  cent. 
I  say,  therefore,  let  us  not  undertake  to  change  the  tariff  rates  in 
this  closing  week  of  the  session.  But  when  the  Administration 
tell  us  that  four  or  five  millions  of  revenue  are  being  lost,  let 
us  provide  the  means  they  want  to  protect  the  government 
against  undervaluation  and  loss. 


REVOLUTION     IN     CONGRESS. 

SPEECHES   DELIVERED    IN  THE   HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 
MARCH  29  AND  APRIL  4,  1879. 


WITH  the  Forty-fourth  Congress  (1875)  the  Democratic  party  gained 
an  ascendency  in  the  House  of  Representatives  which  it  maintained  until 
the  close  of  the  Forty-sixth  (1881).  With  the  Forty-fifth  Congress,  it 
also  gained  an  ascendency  in  the  Senate,  which  it  maintained  four  years. 
Taking  advantage  of  their  newly  gained  power,  the  party  leaders  at 
tempted  to  force  the  repeal  or  the  amendment  of  certain  parts  of  the 
"  Revised  Statutes  "  which  were  obnoxious  to  them.  Pending  the  Army 
Appropriation  Bill,  February  6,  1879,  Mr.  A.  S.  Hewitt,  of  New0 York, 
moved  to  add  these  two  new  sections :  — 

"That  Section  2002  of  the  Revised  Statutes  be  amended  so  as  to  read 
as  follows  :  '  No  military  or  naval  officer,  or  other  person  engaged  in 
the  civil,  military,  or  naval  service  of  the  United  States,  shall  order,  bring, 
keep,  or  have  under  his  authority  or  control,  any  troops  or  armed  men  at 
the  place  where  any  general  or  special  election  is  held  in  any  State,  unless 
it  be  necessary  to  repel  the  armed  enemies  of  the  United  States.' 

"And  that  Section  5528  of  the  Revised  Statutes  be  amended  so  as  to 
read  as  follows  :  '  Every  officer  of  the  army  and  navy,  or  other  person 
in  the  civil,  military,  or  naval  service  of  the  United  States,  who  orders, 
brings,  keeps,  or  has  under  his  authority  or  control,  any  troops  or  armed 
men,  at  any  place  where  a  general  or  special  election  is  held  in  any  State, 
unless  such  force  be  necessary  to  repel  armed  enemies  of  the  United 
States,  shall  be  fined  not  more  than  $5,000,  and  suffer  imprisonment  at 
hard  labor  not  less  than  three  months  nor  more  than  five  years.'  " 

The  House  adopted  the  new  sections ;  the  Senate  (which  was  then 
Republican)  threw  them  out ;  each  house  insisted,  and  the  bill  failed  to 
pass,  thus  leaving  the  army  unprovided  for  after  June  30,  1879.  There 
was  also  a  difference  between  the  two  houses  as  to  a  proposed  reorgani 
zation  of  the  army. 

Pending  the  Legislative,  Executive,  and  Judicial  Appropriation  Bill  of 
the  same  session,  February  19,  1879,  Mr.  Herbert,  of  Alabama,  moved 


656  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS. 

a  new  section,  appropriating  $2,800,000  to  meet  the  expenses  of  the 
United  States  courts,  —  a  section  so  drawn  as  to  omit  all  provision  for 
executing  the  act  of  February  28,  1871,  "to  enforce  the  right  of  citizens 
of  the  ^United  States  to  vote  in  the  several  States  of  the  Union  and  for 
other  purposes,"  as  well  as  for  executing  any  and  all  acts  amending  or 
supplementing  said  act.  The  section  also  repealed  Sections  820  and 
821  of  the  Revised  Statutes,  relating  to  the  qualifications  of  jurors  in  the 
United  States  courts. 

Mr.  Southard,  of  Ohio,  moved  this  section  to  the  same  bill  the  same 
day :  "  That  the  several  sections  of  the  Revised  Statutes  of  the  United 
States  from  and  including  Section  2011  to  and  including  Section  2031, 
and  all  other  provisions  of  law  authorizing  the  appointment  of,  or  the 
performance  of  any  duty  by,  any  chief  or  other  supervisor  of  elections,  or 
any  special  deputy  marshal,  or  other  deputy  marshal  of  elections,  or  the 
payment  of  any  money  to  any  such  supervisor  or  deputy  marshal  of  elec 
tions  for  any  service  performed  as  such,  be,  and  the  same  are  hereby, 
repealed." 

The  House  added  both  the  Herbert  and  the  Southard  "  riders  "  to  the 
bill ;  the  Senate  refused  to  concur ;  conference  committees  failed  to  effect 
an  adjustment,  and  this  bill  also  fell. 

On  the  4th  of  March  the  Forty-fifth  Congress  expired  by  limitation. 
Two  ef  the  twelve  great  appropriation  bills,  together  covering  $45,000,000, 
having  failed  to  become  laws,  President  Hayes  at  once  issued  his  procla 
mation  summoning  the  Forty-sixth  Congress  to  meet  in  special  session, 
March  19,  1879.  In  his  message  he  informed  the  houses  that  the  failure 
of  the  appropriations  had  made  the  extra  session  necessary.  The  struggle 
that  began  in  the  last  session  of  the  previous  Congress  was  now  renewed, 
and  carried  forward  with  great  excitement  and  violence.  The  Demo 
crats  were  now  in  a  majority  in  both  houses.  To  follow  this  struggle, 
point  by  point,  through  the  session,  is  here  impossible.  Those  who  wish 
to  do  so  are  referred  to  the  Congressional  Record,  or  to  McPher- 
son's  Handbook  of  Politics  for  1880  (Sections  VI.,  XII.,  XIII.,  XIV.), 
where  a  full  record  of  propositions,  votes,  vetoes,  and  results  will  be 
found.  Still  some  leading  points  must  be  stated  here,  in  order  to  make 
Mr.  Garfield's  various  speeches  fully  intelligible. 

A  new  Army  Bill  was  reported  to  the  House,  March  27.  While  this 
bill  was  less  obnoxious  to  the  Republicans  than  the  amended  bill  of  the 
previous  session,  it  still  contained  the  "  political  "  sections  offered  by  Mr. 
.Hewitt  on  February  6.  Two  days  after  this  bill  was  reported,  Mr.  Gar- 
field  opened  the  attack  upon  it  from  the  Republican  side  of  the  chamber, 
in  the  speech  given  below,  and  named  by  him  "  Revolution  in  Con 
gress."  At  the  same  time  that  the  Army  Bill  was  passing  through  its 
various  stages  in  the  House,  the  Legislative,  Executive,  and  Judicial 
Bill  was  also  on  its  way.  Throughout  the  debate  on  both  bills,  Mr.  Gar- 


RE  VOL  UTION  IN  CONGRESS.  657 

field  bore  the  foremost  part  on  the  Republican  side ;  in  fact,  he  was 
more  prominent  than  any  other  member,  Republican  or  Democrat. 
The  questions  raised  by  the  two  bills  were  to  a  great  degree  the  same ; 
hence  his  several  speeches  and  various  remarks  need  to  be  taken  to 
gether  to  get  a  full  statement  of  his  views.  They  are  here  given  in  the 
order  of  their  delivery  as  found  in  the  Record,  and  not  in  the  order  of 
their  subjects.  The  introductory  notes  furnish  the  necessary  connecting 
narrative  :  the  notes  and  the  speeches  together  will  give  a  comprehensive 
history  of  the  extra  session  of  the  Forty-sixth  Congress. 

The  reader  who  will  take  the  pains  to  look  through  the  Revised  Stat 
utes,  as  they  stood  in  1879,  will  find  a  large  amount  of  legislation  in  re 
gard  to  the  elections  of  Representatives.  He  will  observe,  too,  that  most 
of  it  is  of  later  date  than  the  civil  war.  The  Constitution  declares  that 
"  the  times,  places,  and  manner  of  holding  elections  for  Senators  and  Rep 
resentatives  shall  be  prescribed  in  each  State  by  the  legislature  thereof; 
but  the  Congress  may  at  any  time  by  law  make  or  alter  such  regulations, 
except  as  to  the  places  of  choosing  Senators."  (Article  I.,  Section  4.) 
Obviously  it  would  have  been  competent  for  the  general  government, 
under  this  clause,  to  take  the  sole  and  exclusive  direction  of  the  elections 
of  Representatives.  But,  owing  no  doubt  to  their  unwillingness  to  take 
what  would  then  have  been  considered  a  pronounced  step  in  the  direc 
tion  of  centralization,  and  to  the  fact  that  each  State  had  a  fully  equipped 
electoral  system  in  operation  while  the  nation  had  none,  Congress  did 
nothing  of  the  kind,  but,  by  leaving  the  whole  matter  to  the  management 
of  the  States,  practically  adopted  the  State  machinery.  There  the  matter 
stood  until  1842,  when  Congress  enacted,  after  bitter  opposition,  that  the 
Representatives  from  States  entitled  to  more  than  one  should  be  elected 
by  districts  composed  of  contiguous  territory.  Before  that  time,  the  States 
had  elected  them  by  districts,  or  on  a  general  ticket,  as  they  saw  fit.  No 
further  legislation  was  had  until  near  the  close  of  the  war,  when  the  law 
concerning  troops  at  the  polls,  referred  to  in  the  following  speech,  was 
enacted.  Later  came  the  provision  that  all  votes  for  Representatives  in 
Congress  must  be  by  written  or  printed  ballot,  and  all  votes  cast  otherwise 
should  be  of  no  effect.  This  was  in  1871.  The  provisions  of  Title  26  of 
the  Revised  Statutes,  relating  to  supervisors  and  marshals,  were  originally 
enacted  in  1870,  1871,  and  1872,  being  parts  of  laws  for  carrying  into 
effect  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  the  provisions  of  Title  70,  in  relation  to  the  same  general  subject.  Most 
of  this  legislation,  which  was  a  direct  outgrowth  of  the  war,  was  enacted 
when  the  Republican  party  was  overwhelmingly  in  the  ascendant,  and 
the  Democratic  party  was  too  feeble  to  offer  even  an  energetic  protest. 
Without  here  raising  the  question  of  its  propriety  and  utility,  it  may  be 
said  that  it  was  quite  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  and  traditions  of  the  Re 
publican  party,  but  was  antagonistic  to  the  general  spirit  and  traditions  of 

VOL.  ii.  42 


658  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS. 

the  Democratic  party.  Separate  and  apart,  therefore,  from  any  desire  to 
obtain  a  party  advantage,  which  Mr.  Garfield  constantly  charges  in  his 
speeches  of  that  period,  it  was  but  natural  that  the  Democrats,  as  soon 
as  they  gained  full  control  of  Congress,  or  of  either  house,  should  fiercely 
antagonize  the  election  laws. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,  — I  have  no  hope  of  being  able  to 
convey  to  the  members  of  this  House  my  own  convic 
tion  of  the  very  great  gravity  and  solemnity  of  the  crisis  which 
this  decision l  of  the  chair  and  of  the  Committee  of  the  Whole 
has  brought  upon  this  country.  I  wish  I  could  be  proved  a 
false  prophet  in  reference  to  the  result  of  this  action.  I  wish 
I  could  be  overwhelmed  with  the  proof  that  I  am  utterly  mis 
taken  in  my  views.  But  no  view  I  have  ever  taken  has  entered 
more  deeply  and  more  seriously  into  my  conviction  than  this, 
that  the  House  has  to-day  resolved  to  enter  upon  a  revolution 
against  the  Constitution  and  government  of  the  United  States. 
I  do  not  know  that  this  intention  exists  in  the  minds  of  half 
the  representatives  who  occupy  the  other  side  of  this  hall ;  I 
hope  it  does  not;  I  am  ready  to  believe  it  does  not  exist  to 
any  great  extent;  but  I  affirm  that  the  consequence  of  the 
programme  just  adopted,  if  persisted  in,  will  be  nothing  less 
than  the  total  subversion  of  this  government.  Let  me  in  the 
outset  state,  as  carefully  as  I  may,  the  precise  situation. 

At  the  last  session,  all  our  ordinary  legislative  work  was  done 
in  accordance  with  the  usages  of  the  House  and  Senate,  except 
the  passage  of  two  bills.  Two  of  the  twelve  great  appropri 
ation  bills  for  the  support  of  the  government  were  agreed  to  in 
both  houses  as  to  every  matter  of  detail  concerning  the  appro 
priations  proper.  We  were  assured  by  the  committees  of  con 
ference  in  both  bodies  that  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in 
adjusting  all  differences  in  reference  to  the  amounts  of  money 
to  be  appropriated  and  the  objects  of  their  appropriation.  But 
the  House  of  Representatives  proposed  three  measures  of  dis 
tinctly  independent  legislation;  one  upon  the  army  appropri 
ation  bill,  and  two  upon  the  legislative  appropriation  bill.  The 
three  grouped  together  are  briefly  these :  first,  the  substantial 

1  The  point  of  order  had  been  raised,  under  the  rules,  that  one  of  the  sections 
changed  existing  law,  that  it  was  not  germane  to  the  bill,  and  that  it  did  not  re 
trench  expenditures.  The  decision  referred  to  above  is  the  chairman's,  overruling 
the  point  of  order. 


REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS.  659 

modification  of  certain  sections  of  the  law  relating  to  the  use 
[of  the  army;  second,  the  repeal  of  the  jurors'  test  oath;  and 
third,  the  repeal  of  the  laws  regulating  elections  of  members  of 
Congress.  These  three  propositions  of  legislation  were  insisted 
upon  by  the  House,  but  the  Senate  refused  to  adopt  them.  So 
far  it  was  an  ordinary  proceeding,  one  which  occurs  frequently 
in  all  legislative  bodies.  The  Senate  said  to  us  through  their 
conferees,  "  We  are  ready  to  pass  the  appropriation  bills ;  but 
we  are  unwilling  to  pass  as  riders  the  three  legislative  measures 
you  ask  us  to  pass."  Thereupon  the  House,  through  its  con 
ference  committee,  made  the  following  declaration,  —  and  in 
order  that  I  may  do  exact  justice,  I  read  from  the  speech  of 
the  distinguished  Senator  from  Kentucky,1  on  the  report  of  the 
second  conference  committee  on  the  Legislative,  Executive,  and 
Judicial  Appropriation  Bill :  — 

"  The  Democratic  conferees  on  the  part  of  the  House  seemed  deter 
mined  that  unless  those  rights  were  secured  to  the  people  "  —  alluding  to 
the  three  points  I  have  named  — "  in  the  bills  sent  to  the  Senate,  they 
would  refuse,  under  their  constitutional  right,  to  make  appropriations  to 
carry  on  the  government,  if  the  dominant  majority  in  the  Senate  insisted 
upon  the  maintenance  of  these  laws  and  refused  to  consent  to  their 
repeal." 

Then,  after  stating  that,  if  the  position  they  had  taken  com 
pelled  an  extra  session,  the  new  Congress  would  offer  the 
repealing  bills  separately,  and  forecasting  what  would  happen 
when  the  new  House  should  be  under  no  necessity  of  coercing 
the  Senate,  he  said :  — 

"  If,  however,  the  President  of  the  United  States,  in  the  exercise  of  the 
power  vested  in  him,  should  see  fit  to  veto  the  bills  thus  presented  to 
him,  ....  then  I  have  no  doubt  those  same  amendments  will  be  again 
made  part  of  the  appropriation  bills,  and  it  will  be  for  the  President  to 
determine  whether  he  will  block  the  wheels  of  government  and  refuse  to 
accept  necessary  appropriations  rather  than  allow  the  representatives  of 
the  people  to  repeal  odious  laws  which  they  regard  as  subversive  of  their 

rights  and  privileges Whether  that  course  is  right  or  wrong,  it 

will  be  adopted,  and  I  have  no  doubt  adhered  to,  no  matter  what  hap 
pens  with  the  appropriation  bills."  2 

That  was  the  proposition  made  by  the  Democracy  in  Con 
gress  at  the  close  of  the  Congress  now  dead. 

Another  distinguished  Senator,  Mr.  Thurman,  of  Ohio,  —  and 

1  Mr.  Beck.  2  Congressional  Record,  March  3,  1879,  p.  2319. 


660  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS. 

I  may  properly  refer  to  Senators  of  a  Congress  not  now  in  ex 
istence,  —  reviewing  the  situation,  declared  in  still  more  succinct 
terms :  "  We  claim  the  right,  which  the  House  of  Commons  in 
England  established  after  two  centuries  of  contest,  to  say  that 
we  will  not  grant  the  money  of  the  people  unless  there  is  a 
redress  of  grievances."  ] 

These  propositions  were  repeated  with  various  degrees  of 
vehemence  by  the  majority  in  the  House.  The  majority  in  the 
Senate  and  the  minority  on  this  floor  expressed  the  deepest 
anxiety  to  avoid  an  extra  session  and  to  avert  the  catastro 
phe  thus  threatened,  —  the  stoppage  of  the  government.  They 
pointed  out  the  danger  to  the  country  and  its  business  interests 
of  an  extra  session  of  Congress,  and  expressed  their  willingness 
to  consent  to  any  compromise  consistent  with  their  views  of 
duty  which  should  be  offered,  —  not  in  the  way  of  coercion,  but 
in  the  way  of  fair  adjustment,  —  and  asked  to  be  met  in  a  spirit 
of  just  accommodation  on  the  other  side.  Unfortunately  no 
spirit  of  adjustment  was  manifested  in  reply  to  their  advances. 
In  consequence  the  new  Congress  is  assembled,  and,  after  ten 
days  of  caucus  deliberation,  the  House  of  Representatives  has 
resolved,  substantially,  to  reaffirm  the  positions  of  its  predeces 
sors,  except  that  the  suggestion  of  Senator  Beck  to  offer  the 
independent  legislation  in  a  separate  bill  has  been  abandoned. 
By  a  construction  of  the  rules  of  the  House  far  more  violent 
than  any  heretofore  given,  a  part  of  this  independent  legisla 
tion  is  placed  on  the  pending  bill  for  the  support  of  the  army; 
and  this  House  has  determined  to  begin  its  career  by  the  ex- 
tremest  form  of  coercive  legislation.  In  my  remarks  to-day 
I  shall  confine  myself  almost  exclusively  to  the  one  phase  of 
the  controversy  presented  in  this  bill. 

MR.  ATKINS.  Do  I  understand  you  to  state  that  in  the  conference 
committee  no  proposition  was  made  other  than  the  one  suggested  in  the 
legislation  proposed  to  be  attached  to  the  bill  by  the  House  conferees  ? 

I  did  not  undertake  to  state  what  was  done  in  conference 
except  as  reported  by  Senator  Beck,  for  I  was  not  a  member 
of  the  committee. 

MR.  ATKINS.     I  thought  you  did. 

No ;  I  only  declared  what  was  proposed  on  the  floor  of  the 
House  and  Senate. 

1  Congressional  Record,  March  3,  1879,  p.  2321. 


RE  VOL  UTION  IN  CONGRESS.  66 1 

MR.  ATKINS.  With  the  gentleman's  permission  I  will  state  that  the 
proposition  the  House  made  in  conference  committee  was  substantially 
the  proposition  now  before  the  House,  and  here  offered  to  be  attached 
to  these  bills. 

I  take  it  for  granted  that  what  my  friend  on  the  other  side 
says  is  strictly  true ;  but  not  even  that  proposition  was  reported 
to  either  House. 

The  question,  Mr.  Chairman,  may  be  asked,  Why  make  any 
special  resistance  to  certain  repealing  clauses  in  this  bill,  which 
a  good  many  gentlemen  on  this  side  declared  at  the  last  session 
that  they  cared  but  little  about,  and  regarded  as  of  very  little 
practical  importance,  because  for  years  there  had  been  no 
actual  use  for  any  part  of  the  laws  proposed  to  be  repealed, 
and  they  had  no  expectation  there  would  be  any?  It  may  be 
asked,  Why  make  any  controversy  on  either  side  ?  So  far  as  we 
are  concerned,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  desire  to  say  this.  We  recog 
nize  the  other  side  as  accomplished  parliamentarians  and  strat 
egists,  who  have  adopted  with  skill  and  adroitness  their  plan  of 
assault.  You  have  placed  in  the  front  one  of  the  least  objec 
tionable  of  your  measures ;  but  your  whole  programme  has 
been  announced,  and  we  reply  to  your  whole  order  of  battle. 
The  logic  of  your  position  compels  us  to  meet  you  as  promptly 
on  the  skirmish  line  as  afterward  when  our  intrenchments  are 
assailed ;  and  therefore,  at  the  outset,  we  plant  our  case  upon 
the  general  ground  where  we  have  chosen  to  defend  it. 

And  here,  sir,  I  wish  to  make  a  brief  digression,  which  I 
hope  no  gentleman  will  consider  as  controversial  or  personal. 
I  had  occasion  at  a  late  hour  of  the  last  Congress  to  say  some 
thing  on  what  may  be  called  the  voluntary  element  in  our 
institutions.  I  spoke  of  the  distribution  of  the  powers  of  gov 
ernment:  first,  to  the  nation ;  second,  to  the  States ;  and,  third, 
the  reservation  of  powers  to  the  people  themselves.  I  called 
attention  to  the  fact,  that  under  our  form  of  government  the 
most  precious  rights  that  men  can  possess  on  this  earth  are  not 
delegated  to  the  nation  nor  to  the  States,  but  are  reserved  to 
the  third  estate,  the  people  themselves.  I  called  attention  to 
the  interesting  fact  that  lately  the  Chancellor  of  the  German 
Empire  had  made  the  declaration  that  it  was  the  chief  object 
of  the  existence  of  the  German  government  to  defend  and  main 
tain  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ,  —  an  object  in  reference  to 


662  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS. 

which  our  Congress  is  absolutely  forbidden  by  the  Constitution 
to  legislate  at  all.  Congress  can  establish  no  religion,  —  indeed, 
can  make  no  law  respecting  it,  because  in  the  view  of  our 
fathers,  the  founders  of  our  government,  religion  was  too  pre 
cious  a  right  to  be  intrusted  by  delegation  to  any  government. 
Its  maintenance  was  left  to  the  voluntary  action  of  the  people 
themselves.  In  continuation  of  that  thought,  I  wish  now  to 
speak  of  the  voluntary  element  inside  our  government,  —  a 
topic  that  I  have  not  heard  discussed,  but  one  which  appears 
to  me  of  vital  importance  in  any  comprehensive  view  of  our 
institutions. 

Mr.  Chairman,  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  a  foreigner, 
our  government  may  be  said  to  be  the  feeblest  on  the  earth ; 
from  our  standpoint,  and  with  our  experience,  it  is  the  mighti 
est.  But  why  would  a  foreigner  call  it  the  feeblest?  He  can 
point  out  a  half-dozen  ways  in  which  it  can  be  destroyed  with 
out  violence.  Of  course,  all  governments  may  be  overturned 
by  the  sword ;  but  there  are  several  ways  in  which  ours  may  be 
annihilated  without  the  firing  of  a  gun.  For  example,  if  the 
people  of  the  United  States  should  say  we  will  elect  no  House 
of  Representatives  —  of  course  this  is  a  violent  supposition  — 
but  suppose  they  do  not,  is  there  any  remedy?  Does  our  Con 
stitution  provide  any  remedy  whatever?  In  two  years  there 
would  be  no  House  of  Representatives ;  of  course  no  support 
of  the  government,  and  no  government.  Suppose,  again,  the 
States  should  say,  through  their  legislatures,  we  will  elect  no 
Senators.  Such  abstention  alone  would  absolutely  destroy  this 
government;  and  our  system  provides  no  process  of  compul 
sion  to  prevent  it. 

Again,  suppose  the  two  houses  were  assembled  in  their  usual 
order,  and  a  majority  of  one  in  this  body,  or  in  the  Senate, 
should  firmly  band  themselves  together  and  say  they  would 
vote  to  adjourn  the  moment  the  hour  of  meeting  arrives,  and 
continue  so  to  vote  at  every  session  during  our  two  years  of 
existence,  the  government  would  perish,  and  there  is  no  pro 
vision  of  the  Constitution  to  prevent  it.  Or,  again,  if  a  majority 
of  one  in  either  body  should  declare  that  they  would  vote  down, 
and  should  vote  down,  every  bill  to  support  the  government  by 
appropriations,  can  you  find  in  the  whole  range  of  our  judicial 
or  our  executive  authority  any  remedy  whatever?  A  Senator 


REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS.  663 

or  a  Representative  is  free,  and  may  vote  "  No "  on  every 
proposition.  Nothing  but  his  oath  and  his  honor  restrains 
him.  Not  so  with  executive  and  judicial  officers.  They  have 
no  power  to  destroy  this  government.  Let  them  travel  an 
inch  beyond  the  line  of  the  law,  and  they  fall  within  the  power 
of  impeachment.  But  against  the  people  who  create  Repre 
sentatives,  against  the  legislatures  who  create  Senators,  against 
Senators  and  Representatives  in  these  halls,  there  is  no  power 
of  impeachment;  there  is  no  remedy,  if  by  abstention  or  by 
adverse  votes  they  refuse  to  support  the  government. 

At  a  first  view,  it  would  seem  strange  that  a  body  of  men 
so  wise  as  our  fathers  were  should  have  left  one  whole  side 
of  their  fabric  open  to  these  deadly  assaults ;  but  on  a  closer 
view  of  the  case  their  wisdom  will  appear.  What  was  their 
reliance?  This:  the  sovereign  of  this  nation,  the  God-crowned 
and  Heaven-anointed  sovereign,  in  whom  resides  "  the  state's 
collected  will,"  and  to  whom  we  all  owe  allegiance,  is  the  peo 
ple  themselves.  Inspired  by  love  of  country,  and  by  a  deep 
sense  of  obligation  to  perform  every  public  duty,  —  being  them 
selves  the  creators  of  all  the  agencies  and  forces  to  execute 
their  own  will,  and  choosing  from  themselves  their  representa 
tives  to  express  that  will  in  the  forms  of  law,  —  it  would  have 
been  like  a  suggestion  of  suicide  to  assume  that  any  of  these 
great  voluntary  powers  would  be  turned  against  the  life  of  the 
government.  Public  opinion  was  trusted  as  a  power  amply  able, 
and  always  willing,  to  guard  all  the  approaches  on  that  side  of 
the  Constitution  against  any  assault  on  the  life  of  the  nation. 

Up  to  this  hour  our  sovereign  has  never  failed  us.  There 
has  never  been  such  a  refusal  to  exercise  those  primary  func 
tions  of  sovereignty  as  either  to  endanger  or  cripple  the  gov 
ernment  ;  nor  have  the  majority  of  the  representatives  of  that 
sovereign,  in  either  house  of  Congress,  ever  before  announced 
their  purpose  to  use  their  voluntary  powers  for  its  destruction. 
And  now,  for  the  first  time  in  our  history,  —  and  I  will  add,  for 
the  first  time  for  at  least  two  centuries  in  the  history  of  any 
English-speaking  nation,  —  it  is  suggested  and  threatened  that 
these  voluntary  powers  of  Congress  shall  be  used  for  the  de 
struction  of  the  government.  I  want  it  distinctly  understood 
that  the  proposition  which  I  read  at  the  beginning  of  my  re 
marks,  and  which  is  the  programme  announced  to  the  Ameri 
can  people  to-day,  is  this :  that  if  this  House  cannot  have  its 


664  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS. 

own  way  in  certain  matters  not  connected  with  appropriations, 
it  will  so  use  or  refrain  from  using  its  voluntary  powers  as  to 
destroy  the  government. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  it  has  been  said  on  the  other  side,  that, 
when  a  demand  for  the  redress  of  grievances  is  made,  the  au 
thority  that  runs  the  risk  of  stopping  and  destroying  the  govern 
ment  is  the  one  that  resists  the  redress.  Not  so.  If  gentlemen 
will  do  me  the  honor  to  follow  my  thought  for  a  moment  more, 
I  trust  I  shall  make  this  denial  good. 

Our  theory  of  law  is  free  consent.  That  is  the  granite  foun 
dation  of  our  whole  superstructure.  Nothing  in  this  republic 
can  be  law  without  consent,  —  the  free  consent  of  the  House, 
the  free  consent  of  the  Senate,  the  free  consent  of  the  Execu 
tive,  or,  if  he  refuse  it,  the  free  consent  of  two  thirds  of  these 
bodies.  Will  any  man  deny  that?  Will  any  man  challenge  a 
letter  of  the  statement  that  free  consent  is  the  foundation  of 
all  our  institutions?  And  yet  the  programme  announced  two 
weeks  ago  was,  that,  if  the  Senate  refused  to  consent  to  the 
demand  of  the  House,  the  government  should  stop.  And  the 
proposition  was  then,  and  the  proposition  is  now,  that,  although 
there  is  not  a  Senate  to  be  coerced,  there  is  still  a  third  inde 
pendent  branch  of  the  legislative  power  of  the  government 
whose  consent  is  to  be  coerced  at  the  peril  of  the  destruction 
of  this  government;  that  is,  if  the  President,  in  the  discharge 
of  his  duty,  shall  exercise  his  plain  constitutional  right  to  refuse 
his  consent  to  this  proposed  legislation,  the  Congress  will  so 
use  its  voluntary  powers  as  to  destroy  the  government.  This 
is  the  proposition  which  we  confront;  and  we  denounce  it  as 
revolution. 

It  makes  no  difference,  Mr.  Chairman,  what  the  issue  is.  If  it 
were  the  simplest  and  most  inoffensive  proposition  in  the  world, 
yet  if  you  demand,  as  a  measure  of  coercion,  that  it  shall  be 
adopted  against  the  free  consent  prescribed  in  the  Constitution, 
every  fair-minded  man  in  America  is  bound  to  resist  you  as 
much  as  though  his  own  life  depended  upon  his  resistance. 
Let  it  be  understood  that  I  am  not  arguing  the  merits  of  any 
one  of  the  three  amendments.  I  am  discussing  the  proposed 
method  of  legislation ;  and  I  declare  that  it  is  against  the  Con 
stitution  of  our  country.  It  is  revolutionary  to  the  core,  and 
is  destructive  of  the  fundamental  principle  of  American  liberty, 
the  free  consent  of  all  the  powers  that  unite  to  make  laws.  In 


REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS.  665 

opening  this  debate,  I  challenge  all  comers  to  show  a  single 
instance  in  our  history  where  this  consent  has  been  thus  co 
erced.  This  is  the  great,  the  paramount  issue,  which  dwarfs  all 
others  into  insignificance. 

I  now  turn  aside  from  the  line  of  my  argument,  for  a  moment, 
to  say  that  it  is  not  a  little  surprising  that  our  friends  on  the 
other  side  should  have  gone  into  this  great  contest  on  so  weak 
a  cause  as  the  one  embraced  in  the  pending  amendment  to 
this  bill.  Victor  Hugo  said,  in  his  description  of  the  battle  of 
Waterloo,  that  the  struggle  of  the  two  armies  was  like  the 
wrestling  of  two  giants,  when  a  chip  under  the  heel  of  either 
might  determine  the  victory.  It  may  be  that  this  amendment 
is  the  chip  under  your  heel,  or  it  may  be  that  it  is  the  chip  on 
our  shoulder ;  as  a  chip,  it  is  of  small  account  to  you  or  to  us ; 
but  when  it  represents  the  integrity  of  the  Constitution,  and  is 
assailed  by  revolution,  we  fight  for  it  as  for  a  Kohinoor  of 
purest  water. 

The  distinguished  and  venerable  gentleman  from  Georgia1 
spoke  of  the  law  which  is  sought  to  be  repealed  as  "  odious 
and  dangerous."  It  has  been  denounced  as  a  piece  of  partisan 
war  legislation,  to  enable  the  army  to  control  elections.  Do 
gentlemen  know  its  history?  Do  they  know  whereof  they 
affirm?  Who  made  this  law  which  is  denounced  as  so  great 
an  offence  as  to  justify  the  destruction  of  the  government  rather 
than  let  it  remain  on  the  statute-book?  Its  first  draft  was  in 
troduced  into  the  Senate  by  a  prominent  Democrat  from  the 
State  of  Kentucy,  Mr.  Powell,  who  made  an  able  speech  in  its 
favor.  It  was  reported  against  by  a  Republican  committee  of 
that  body,  whose  printed  report  I  hold  in  my  hand.  It  encoun 
tered  weeks  of  debate,  was  amended  and  passed,  and  then  came 
into  the  House.  Every  Democrat  present  in  the  Senate  voted 
for  it  on  its  final  passage.  Every  Senator  who  voted  against  it 
was  a  Republican.  No  Democrat  voted  against  it.  Who  were 
the  Democrats  that  voted  for  it?  Let  me  read  some  of  the 
names:  Hendricks,  of  Indiana;  Davis,  of  Kentucky;  Johnson, 
of  Maryland;  McDougall,  of  California;  Powell,  of  Kentucky ; 
Richardson,  of  Illinois ;  and  Saulsbury,  of  Delaware.  Of  Re 
publican  Senators,  thirteen  voted  against  it;  only  ten  voted 
for  it. 

The  bill  then  came  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  was 

1  Mr.  Stephens. 


666  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS. 

put  upon  its  passage  here.  How  did  the  vote  stand  in  this 
body?  Every  Democrat  present  at  the  time  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  of  the  Thirty-eighth  Congress  voted  for  it.  The 
total  vote  in  its  favor  in  the  House  was  one  hundred  and  thirteen, 
and  of  these  fifty-eight  were  Democrats.  And  who  were  they? 
The  magnates  of  the  party.  The  distinguished  Speaker  of  this 
House,  Mr.  Samuel  J.  Randall,  voted  for  it.  The  distinguished 
chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  of  the  last 
House,  Mr.  Fernando  Wood,  voted  for  it.  The  distinguished 
member  from  my  own  State,  who  now  holds  a  seat  in  the  other 
end  of  the  Capitol,  Mr.  George  H.  Pendleton,  voted  for  it. 
Messrs.  Cox  and  Coffroth,  Kernan  and  Morrison,  who  are  still 
in  Congress,  voted  for  it.  Every  Democrat  of  conspicuous 
name  and  fame  in  that  House  voted  for  the  bill,  and  not  one 
against  it.  There  were  but  few  Republicans  who  voted  against 
it.  I  was  one  of  the  few.  Thaddeus  Stevens  and  Judge  Kelley 
were  others. 

But  what  was  the  controversy?  What  was  the  object  of  the 
bill?  It  was  alleged  by  Democrats  that  in  those  days  of  war 
there  were  interferences  with  the  proper  freedom  of  elections 
in  the  border  States.  We  denied  the  charge ;  but  lest  there 
might  be  some  infraction  of  the  freedom  of  elections,  many 
Republicans,  unwilling  that  there  should  be  even  the  semblance 
of  interference  with  that  freedom,  voted  for  it.  This  law  is  an 
expression  of  their  purpose  that  the  army  should  not  be  used 
at  any  election  except  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the  peace. 
Those  Republicans  who  voted  against  it  did  so  on  the  ground 
that  there  was  no  cause  for  such  legislation ;  that  it  was  a  slan 
der  upon  the  government  and  the  army  to  say  that  they  were 
interfering  with  the  proper  freedom  of  elections.  I  was  among 
that  number  — 

MR.  CARLISLE.  I  ask  if  the  Democrats  in  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives  did  not  vote  for  that  proposition  because  it  came  in  the 
form  of  a  substitute  for  another  proposition  that  was  still  more  objec 
tionable. 

The  gentleman  is  quite  mistaken.  The  original  bill  was  in 
troduced  by  a  gentleman  from  Kentucky,  Mr.  Powell ;  it  was 
amended  in  its  course  through  the  Senate;  but  the  votes  to 
which  I  have  referred  were  the  final  votes  on  its  passage  after 
all  the  amendments  had  been  made ;  and,  what  is  more,  a  Re 
publican  Senator  moved  to  reconsider  it,  hoping  that  he  might 


REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS.  667 

thereby  kill  it.  And  after  several  days'  delay  and  debate  it  was 
again  passed,  every  Democrat  again  voting  for  it.  In  the  House 
there  was  no  debate,  and  therefore  no  expression  of  the  reasons 
why  anybody  voted  for  it.  Each  man  voted  according  to  his 
convictions,  I  suppose. 

MR.  STEPHENS.  —  I  simply  ask  if  the  country  is  likely  to  be  revolution 
ized,  and  the  government  destroyed,  by  repealing  a  law  that  the  gentle 
man  himself  voted  against. 

I  think  not.  That  is  not  the  element  of  revolution,  as  I  will 
show  the  gentleman.  The  proposition  now  is,  that  after  four 
teen  years  have  passed,  and  not  one  petition  from  one  American 
citizen  has  come  to  us  asking  that  this  law  be  repealed,  while 
not  one  memorial  has  found  its  way  to  our  desks  complaining 
of  the  law,  so  far  as  I  have  heard,  the  Democratic  Representa 
tives  declare  that,  if  they  are  not  permitted  to  force  upon  the 
other  house  and  upon  the  Executive,  against  their  consent,  the 
repeal  of  a  law  that  Democrats  made,  this  refusal  will  be  consid 
ered  a  sufficient  ground  for  starving  this  government  to  death. 
That  is  the  proposition  which  we  denounce  as  revolution. 

MR.  FERNANDO  WOOD.  Before  he  leaves  that  part  of  his  remarks  to 
which  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky  l  has  referred,  I  desire  to  ask  the 
gentleman  whether  he  wishes  to  make  the  impression  upon  the  House 
that  the  bill  introduced  by  Senator  Powell  of  Kentucky,  and  which  re 
sulted  finally  in  the  law  of  1865,  was  the  bill  that  passed  the  Senate,  that 
passed  the  House,  and  for  which  he  says  the  present  Speaker  of  this 
House  and  myself  voted. 

I  have  not  intimated  that  there  were  no  amendments.  On 
the  contrary  I  have  said  that  it  was  amended  in  the  Senate. 
One  amendment  permitted  the  use  of  the  army  to  repel  armed 
enemies  of  the  United  States  from  the  polls. 

MR.  WOOD.  So  far  as  I  am  personally  concerned,  I  deny  that  I  ever 
voted  for  the  bill  except  as  a  substitute  for  a  more  pernicious  and  objec 
tionable  measure. 

What  I  have  said  is  a  matter  of  record.  I  say  again  the  gen 
tleman  voted  for  this  law ;  every  Democrat  in  the  Senate  and 
in  the  House,  who  voted  at  all,  voted  for  this  law  just  as  it  now 
stands ;  and  without  their  votes  it  could  not  have  passed.  No 
amendments  whatever  were  offered  in  the  House,  and  there  was 
no  other  bill  on  the  subject  before  the  House. 

1  Mr.  Carlisle. 


668  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS. 

MR.  WOOD.  I  desire  to  submit  another  question  to  my  friend.  It  is 
whether,  in  1865,  at  the  time  of  the  passage  of  this  law,  when  the  war 
had  not  really  subsided,  —  whether  there  was  not  in  a  portion  of  this 
country  a  condition  of  things  rendering  it  almost  impossible  to  exercise 
the  elective  franchise  unless  there  was  some  degree  of  military  interfer 
ence.  And  further,  whether,  after  the  experience  of  fourteen  years 
since  the  war  has  subsided,  that  gentleman  is  yet  prepared  to  continue 
a  war  measure  in  a  time  of  profound  peace  in  this  country. 

No  doubt  the  patriotic  gentleman  from  New  York  took  all 
these  things  into  consideration  when  he  voted  for  this  law ;  and 
I  may  have  been  unpatriotic  in  voting  against  it  at  that  time ; 
but  he  and  I  must  stand  by  our  records,  as  they  were  made. 
Let  it  be  understood  that  I  am  not  discussing  the  merits  of  this 
law.  I  have  merely  turned  aside  from  the  line  of  my  argument 
to  show  the  inconsistency  of  the  other  side  in  proposing  to  stop 
the  government  if  they  cannot  force  the  repeal  of  a  law  which 
they  themselves  helped  to  make.  I  am  discussing  a  method  of 
revolution  against  the  Constitution  now  proposed  by  this  House, 
and  to  that  issue  I  hold  gentlemen  in  this  debate,  and  challenge 
them  to  reply. 

And  now,  Mr.  Chairman,  I  ask  the  forbearance  of  gentlemen 
on  the  other  side  while  I  offer  a  suggestion,  which  I  make  with 
reluctance.  They  will  bear  me  witness  that  I  have,  in  many 
ways,  shown  my  desire  that  the  wounds  of  the  war  should  be 
healed ;  that  the  grass  which  has  grown  green  over  the  graves 
of  the  dead  of  both  armies  might  symbolize  the  returning  spring 
of  friendship  and  peace  between  citizens  who  were  lately  in 
arms  against  each  other.  But  I  am  compelled  by  the  conduct 
of  the  other  side  to  refer  to  a  chapter  of  our  recent  history. 

The  last  act  of  Democratic  domination  in  this  Capitol,  eigh 
teen  years  ago,  was  striking  and  dramatic,  perhaps  heroic. 
Then  the  Democratic  party  said  to  the  Republicans,  "  If  you 
elect  the  man  of  your  choice  President  of  the  United  States, 
we  will  shoot  your  government  to  death  " ;  but  the  people  of 
this  country,  refusing  to  be  coerced  by  threats  or  violence, 
voted  as  they  pleased,  and  lawfully  elected  Abraham  Lincoln 
President.  Then  your  leaders,  though  holding  a  majority  in 
the  other  branch  of  Congress,  were  heroic  enough  to  with 
draw  from  their  seats  and  fling  down  the  gage  of  mortal  battle. 
We  called  it  rebellion;  but  we  recognized  it  as  courageous 
and  manly  to  avow  your  purpose,  take  all  the  risks,  and  fight 


REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS.  669 

it  out  in  the  open  field.  Notwithstanding  your  utmost  efforts 
to  destroy  it,  the  government  was  saved.  Year  by  year,  since 
the  war  ended,  those  who  resisted  you  have  come  to  believe 
that  you  have  finally  renounced  your  purpose  to  destroy, 
and  are  willing  to  maintain  the  government.  In  that  be 
lief  you  have  been  permitted  to  return  to  power  in  the  two 
houses.  To-day,  after  eighteen  years  of  defeat,  the  book  of 
your  domination  is  again  opened,  and  your  first  act  awakens 
every  unhappy  memory,  and  threatens  to  destroy  the  confi 
dence  which  your  professions  of  patriotism  inspired.  You 
turned  down  a  leaf  of  the  history  that  recorded  your  last  act 
of  power  in  1861,  and  you  have  now  signalized  your  return  to 
power  by  beginning  a  second  chapter  at  the  same  page ;  not 
this  time  by  an  heroic  act  that  declares  war  on  the  battle-field ; 
but  you  say,  if  all  the  legislative  powers  of  the  government  do 
not  consent  to  let  you  tear  certain  laws  out  of  the  statute-book, 
put  there  by  the  will  of  the  people,  if  you  cannot  coerce  an 
independent  branch  of  this  government,  not  that  you  will  shoot 
our  government  to  death,  as  you  tried  to  do  before,  but  that 
you  will  starve  the  government  to  death.  Between  death  on  the 
field  and  death  by  starvation,  I  do  not  know  that  the  American 
people  will  see  any  great  difference.  The  end,  if  successfully 
reached,  will  be  death  in  either  case.  Gentlemen,  you  have  it  in 
your  power  to  kill  this  government ;  you  have  it  in  your  power, 
by  withholding  these  two  bills,  to  smite  the  nerve-centres  of 
our  Constitution  with  the  paralysis  of  death;  and  you  have 
declared  your  purpose  to  do  this,  if  you  cannot  break  down 
that  fundamental  principle  of  free  consent  which,  up  to  this 
hour,  has  always  ruled  in  the  legislation  of  this  government. 

MR.  DAVIS.  Do  I  understand  the  gentleman  to  say  that  the  refusal  to 
permit  the  army  at  the  polls  will  be  the  death  of  this  government?  That 
is  the  logic  of  the  gentleman's  argument,  if  it  means  anything.  But  we 
say  that  it  will  be  the  preservation  of  this  government  to  keep  the  military 
power  from  destroying  liberty  at  the  polls. 

I  have  too  much  respect  for  the  intellect  of  the  gentleman 
from  North  Carolina  to  believe  that  he  thinks  that  is  my  argu 
ment.  He  does  not  say  he  thinks  so.  On  the  contrary,  I  am 
sure  that  every  clear-minded  man  on  this  floor  knows  that  such 
is  not  my  argument.  The  position  on  the  other  side  is  simply 
this:  that  unless  some  independent  branch  of  the  legislative 
power  of  this  government  is  forced  against  its  will  to  vote  for  or 


670  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS. 

to  approve  what  it  does  not  freely  consent  to,  you  will  use  the 
voluntary  power  in  your  hands  to  starve  the  government  to 
death. 

MR.  DAVIS.  Will  the  gentleman  permit  me  to  ask  him  another  ques 
tion  ?  Do  I  understand  him  to  assume  that  we  are  forcing  some  branch 
of  the  government  to  do  what  it  does  not  wish  to  do  ?  How  do  we  know 
that,  or  how  does  the  gentleman  know  it  ?  Does  the  gentleman,  when 
he  speaks  of  "  the  government,"  mean  to  say  that  it  is  not  the  govern 
ment  of  the  majority,  or  does  he  assume  that  the  majority  is  on  his  side  ? 

I  am  perfectly  protected  against  the  suggestion  of  the  gen 
tleman.  I  read  in  the  outset  declarations  of  leading  members 
of  his  party,  in  both  branches  of  Congress,  asserting  this  pro 
gramme,  and  declaring  the  intention  of  carrying  it  through  to 
the  end,  in  spite  of  the  Senate  and  in  spite  of  an  Executive 
veto,  which  they  anticipate.  The  method  here  proposed  in 
vites,  possibly  compels,  a  veto. 

Touching  this  question  of  Executive  action,  I  remind  the 
gentleman  that  in  1852  the  National  Democratic  Convention  in 
session  at  Baltimore,  and,  still  later,  the  National  Democratic 
Convention  of  1856,  at  Cincinnati,  affirmed  the  right  of  the 
veto  as  one  of  the  sacred  rights  guaranteed  by  our  government. 
Here  is  the  resolution :  "  That  we  are  decidedly  opposed  to 
taking  from  the  President  the  qualified  veto  power,  by  which 
he  is  enabled,  under  restrictions  and  responsibilities  amply  suf 
ficient  to  guard  the  public  interest,  to  suspend  the  passage  of  a 
bill  whose  merits  cannot  secure  the  approval  of  two  thirds  of 
the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  until  the  judgment 
of  the  people  can  be  obtained  thereon." 

The  doctrine  of  this  is  that  any  measure  which  cannot  be 
passed  over  a  veto  by  a  two-thirds  vote  has  no  right  to  become 
a  law,  and  the  only  mode  of  redress  is  an  appeal  to  the  people 
at  the  next  election.  That  has  been  the  Democratic  doctrine 
from  the  earliest  days,  notably  so  from  Jackson's  time  until  now. 

In  leaving  this  topic,  let  me  ask,  What  would  you  have  said 
if,  in  1861,  the  Democratic  members  of  the  Senate,  being  then  a 
majority  of  that  body,  instead  of  taking  the  heroic  course  and 
going  out  to  battle,  had  simply  said,  "  We  will  put  on  an  appro 
priation  bill  an  amendment  declaring  the  right  of  any  State  to 
secede  from  the  Union  at  pleasure,  and  forbidding  the  President 
or  any  officer  of  the  army  or  navy  of  the  United  States  from 
interfering  with  any  State  in  its  work  of  secession  "  ?  Suppose 


RE  VOL  UTION  IN  CONGRESS.  67 1 

they  had  said  to  the  President,  "  Unless  you  consent  to  the  in 
corporation  of  this  provision  in  an  appropriation  bill,  we  will 
refuse  supplies  to  the  government."  Perhaps  they  could  then 
have  killed  the  government  by  starvation ;  but  even  in  the  mad 
ness  of  that  hour  the  leaders  of  rebellion  did  not  think  it  worthy 
their  manhood  to  put  their  fight  on  that  dishonorable  ground. 
They  planted  themselves  on  the  higher  plane  of  battle,  and 
fought  it  out  to  defeat.  Now,  by  a  method  which  the  wildest 
Secessionist  scorned  to  adopt,  it  is  proposed  to  make  this  new 
assault  upon  the  life  of  the  republic. 

Gentlemen,  we  have  calmly  surveyed  this  new  field  of  con 
flict;  we  have  tried  to  count  the  cost  of  the  struggle,  as  we  did 
that  of  1861  before  we  took  up  your  gage  of  battle.  Though 
no  human  foresight  could  forecast  the  awful  loss  of  blood  and 
treasure,  yet  in  the  name  of  liberty  and  union  we  accepted  the 
issue  and  fought  it  out  to  the  end.  We  made  the  appeal  to  our 
august  sovereign,  to  the  omnipotent  public  opinion  of  America, 
to  determine  whether  the  Union  should  perish  at  your  hands. 
You  know  the  result.  And  now  lawfully,  in  the  exercise  of  our 
right  as  representatives,  we  take  up  the  gage  you  have  this  day 
thrown  down,  and  appeal  again  to  our  common  sovereign  to  de 
termine  whether  you  shall  be  permitted  to  destroy  the  principle 
of  free  consent  in  legislation  under  the  threat  of  starving  the 
government  to  death. 

We  are  ready  to  pass  these  bills  for  the  support  of  the  govern 
ment  at  any  hour  when  you  will  offer  them  in  the  ordinary  way, 
by  the  methods  prescribed  by  the  Constitution.  If  you  offer 
your  other  propositions  as  separate  measures,  we  will  meet  you  in 
the  fraternal  spirit  of  fair  debate  and  will  discuss  their  merits. 
Some  of  your  measures  many  of  us  will  vote  for  in  separate 
bills.  But  you  shall  not  coerce  any  independent  branch  of  this 
government,  even  by  the  threat  of  starvation,  to  surrender  its 
lawful  powers  until  the  question  has  been  appealed  to  the  sov 
ereign  and  decided  in  your  favor.  On  this  ground  we  plant 
ourselves,  and  here  we  will  stand  to  the  end. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  avowed  object  of  this  new  revo 
lution  is  to  destroy  all  the  defences  which  the  nation  has  placed 
around  its  ballot-box  to  guard  the  fountain  of  its  own  life.  You 
say  that  the  United  States  shall  not  employ  even  its  civil  power  to 
keep  peace  at  the  polls.  You  say  that  the  marshals  shall  have 
no  power  to  arrest  either  rioters  or  criminals  who  seek  to  destroy 


6;2v  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS. 

the  freedom  and  purity  of  the  ballot-box.  I  remind  you  that 
you  have  not  always  shown  this  great  zeal  in  keeping  the  civil 
officers  of  the  general  government  out  of  the  States.  Only  six 
years  before  the  war,  your  law  authorized  marshals  of  the 
United  States  to  enter  all  our  hamlets  and  households  to  hunt 
for  fugitive  slaves.  Not  only  that,  it  empowered  the  marshals  to 
summon  the  posse  comitatus,  to  command  all  bystanders  to  join 
in  the  chase  and  aid  in  remanding  the  fleeing  slave  to  eternal 
bondage.  And  your  Democratic  Attorney-General,1  in  an  opin 
ion  published  in  1854,  declared  that  the  marshal  of  the  United 
States  might  summon  to  his  aid  the  whole  able-bodied  force  of 
his  precinct,  all  bystanders,  including  not  only  the  citizens  gen 
erally,  "  but  any  and  all  organized  armed  forces,  whether  militia 
of  the  State,  or  officers,  soldiers,  sailors,  and  marines  of  the 
United  States,"  to  join  in  the  chase  and  hunt  down  the  fugitive. 
Now,  gentlemen,  if,  for  the  purpose  of  making  eternal  slavery 
the  lot  of  an  American,  you  could  send  your  marshals,  summon 
your  posse,  and  use  the  armed  force  of  the  United  States,  with 
what  face  or  grace  can  you  tell  us  that  this  government  cannot 
lawfully  employ  the  same  marshals,  with  their  armed  posse  of 
citizens,  to  maintain  the  purity  of  our  own  elections  and  keep 
the  peace  at  our  own  polls? 

You  have  made  the  issue,  and  we  have  accepted  it.  In  the 
name  of  the  Constitution,  and  on  behalf  of  good  government 
and  public  justice,  we  make  the  appeal  to  our  common  sover 
eign.  For  the  present,  I  refrain  from  discussing  the  merits  of 
the  election  laws.  I  have  sought  only  to  state  the  first  funda 
mental  ground  of  our  opposition  to  this  revolutionary  method 
of  legislation  by  coercion. 


THE  speech  of  March  2Qth  was  directed,  not  so  much  against  the  end 
that  Mr.  Garfield's  political  opponents  proposed  to  effect,  as  against  the 
way  in  which  they  proposed  to  reach  that  end.  He  repeatedly  professed 
a  willingness  to  go  a  considerable  distance  in  the  direction  of  repeal  and 
amendment,  provided  the  repealing  and  amending  enactments  were 
brought  forward  as  original  measures,  and  not  as  "  riders  "  to  appropria 
tion  bills.  But  while  making  this  proffer,  he  objected  in  toto  to  their 
method  of  legislation,  —  viz.  coercing  the  Executive  by  threatening  to 
withhold  necessary  supplies, —  a  method  which  he  called  revolutionary. 

1  Caleb  Gushing,  of  Massachusetts. 


REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS.  673 

Gentlemen  on  the  opposite  side  who  followed  him  misstated  his  po 
sition.  This  led  him,  at  the  close  of  the  debate  on  the  Army  Bill,  to 
restate  his  position  in  the  following  remarks,  made  on  April  4. 

MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —  During  the  last  four  days  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  gentlemen  have  paid  their  special  attention  to  the  speech 
I  made  last  Saturday,  and  have  announced  its  complete  demoli 
tion.  Now  that  the  general  debate  has  closed,  I  will  notice  the 
principal  points  by  which  this  work  of  destruction  has  been  ac 
complished. 

In  the  first  place,  every  man  save  one  who  has  replied  to  me 
has  alleged  that  I  held  it  was  revolutionary  to  place  this  general 
legislation  upon  an  appropriation  bill.  One  gentleman  went  so 
far  as  to  fill  a  page  of  the  Record  with  citations  from  the  Con 
gressional  Globe  and  the  Congressional  Record  to  show  that  for 
many  years  riders  had  been  placed  upon  appropriation  bills.  If 
gentlemen  find  any  pleasure  in  setting  up  a  man  of  straw  and 
knocking  him  down  again,  they  have  enjoyed  themselves.  I 
never  claimed  that  it  was  either  revolutionary  or  unconstitu 
tional  for  this  House  to  put  a  rider  on  an  appropriation  bill. 
No  man  on  this  side  of  the  House  has  claimed  that.  The  most 
that  has  been  said  is,  that  it  is  considered  a  bad  parliamentary 
practice;  and  all  parties  in  this  country  have  said  that  repeatedly. 

The  gentleman  from  Kentucky1  evidently  thought  he  was 
making  a  telling  point  against  me  when  he  cited  the  fact  that,  in 
1872,  I  insisted  upon  the  adoption  of  a  conference  report  on  an 
appropriation  bill  that  had  a  rider  on  it;  and  he  alleged  that  I 
said  it  was  revolutionary  for  his  party  to  resist  it.  Let  me  refresh 
his  memory.  I  said  then,  and  I  say  now,  that  it  was  revolu 
tionary  for  the  minority  to  refuse  to  let  the  appropriation  bill 
be  voted  on.  For  four  days  they  said  we  should  not  vote  at  all 
on  the  Sundry  Civil  Appropriation  Bill  because  there  was  a  rider 
on  it,  put  there,  not  by  the  House,  but  by  the  Senate.  I  was 
sorry  the  rider  was  put  on,  and  moved  to  non-concur  in  the 
amendments  when  they  came  to  the  House ;  but  when  the 
minority  on  this  floor  said  that  we  should  not  act  on  the  bill  at 
all  because  the  rider  was  put  upon  it,  I  said,  and  now  say,  it  was 
unjustifiable  parliamentary  obstruction.  We  do  not  filibuster. 
We  do  not  struggle  to  prevent  a  vote  on  this  bill.  I  will  be  loyal 
to  the  House  of  which  I  am  a  member,  and  maintain  now,  as  I 

i  Mr.  Blackburn. 
VOL.  n.  43 


674  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS. 

did  then,  the  right  of  the  majority  to  bring  an  appropriation 
bill  to  a  vote. 

You  have  a  right  —  however  unwise  and  indecent  it  may 
be  as  a  matter  of  parliamentary  practice  —  you  have  a  perfect 
right  to  put  this  rider  on  this  bill  and  pass  it.  When  you  send 
it  to  the  Senate,  that  body  has  a  perfect  right  to  pass  it.  It 
is  your  constitutional  right  and  theirs  to  pass  it;  for  the  free 
consent  of  each  body  is  the  basis  of  the  law-making  power. 
When  it  goes  to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  it  is  his 
constitutional  right  to  approve  it;  and  if  he  does,  it  will  then 
be  a  law  which  you  and  I  must  obey.  But  it  is  equally  his 
constitutional  right  to  disapprove  it;  and  should  he  do  so, 
then,  gentlemen,  unless  two  thirds  of  this  body  and  two  thirds 
of  the  Senate  pass  it  notwithstanding  the  objections  of  the 
President,  it  is  not  only  not  your  right  to  make  it  a  law,  but 
it  will  be  the  flattest  violation  of  the  Constitution,  the  sheerest 
usurpation  of  power,  to  attempt  to  make  it  a  law  in  any  other 
way.  Without  these  conditions  you  cannot  make  it  a  law. 
What,  then,  is  the  proposition  you  have  offered?  You  say  that 
there  are  certain  odious  laws  that  you  want  to  take  off  the 
statute-book.  I  say  repeal  them,  if  you  can  do  so  constitution 
ally.  But  you  declare  that  you  will  compel  consent  to  your 
will  by  refusing  the  necessary  support,  not  to  the  President,  not 
to  any  man,  but  to  the  government  itself.  This  proposition 
I  denounced  as  revolution,  and  no  man  has  responded  to  the 
charge  either  by  argument  or  denial. 

No  member  on  this  side  brought  the  question  into  this 
chamber.  The  issue  was  not  raised  by  us.  What  brought  it 
here?  The  proclamation  of  your  caucus,  the  declaration  of 
your  conference  committees.  They  announced  it  in  the  last 
House  as  their  programme.  They  said  you  would  combine 
these  measures  of  legislation  together  and  send  them  to  the 
President  in  one  bill,  and  if  he  did  not  approve  them  you  would 
never  vote  the  supplies  for  the  government.  You  threatened 
the  President  in  advance,  before  you  allowed  him  an  oppor 
tunity  to  say  yes  or  no.  You  entered  this  hall  fulminating 
threats  against  him  in  a  high-sounding  proclamation.  You 
thundered  in  the  index.  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether,  in 
the  body  of  your  work,  and  in  its  concluding  paragraphs,  your 
thiinder  will  be  as  terrible  as  it  was  in  the  opening  chapter. 
By  adopting  the  programme  of  the  last  House  you  have  made 


REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS.  675 

it  your  own;  but  you  have  put  the  measures  in  their  most 
offensive  form  by  tacking  them  all  to  the  two  great  appropri 
ation  bills. 

Another  equally  groundless  charge  against  me  and  my  asso 
ciates  is  that  we  have  threatened  your  bills  with  an  Executive 
veto.  I  repel  the  charge  as  wholly  untrue  in  fact.  I  said  noth 
ing  that  can  be  tortured  into  such  a  threat.  It  would  be  inde 
cent  on  my  part;  it  would  be  indecent  for  any  of  us  even  to 
speak  of  what  the  Executive  intends  to  do ;  for  none  of  us  have 
the  right  to  know.  But  you,  in  advance,  proclaimed  to  the 
country  and  to  him,  that,  if  he  dares  to  exercise  his  constitu 
tional  right  of  refusing  his  consent,  you  will  refuse  to  vote  the 
supplies  for  the  government ;  in  other  words,  you  will  starve  it 
to  death.  That  is  the  proposition  we  have  debated. 

My  distinguished  friend  from  Virginia,1  who  has  come  nearer 
meeting  this  case  with  argument  than  any  other  man  on  that 
side,  has  made  a  point  which  I  respect  as  an  evidence  of  the 
gallantry  of  his  intellect.  He  says  that  under  our  Constitution 
we  can  vote  supplies  to  the  army  for  but  two  years ;  that  we 
may  impose  conditions  upon  our  supplies,  and  if  these  be  re 
fused  the  army  ceases  to  exist  after  the  3Oth  of  June  following. 
In  short,  that  the  annual  Army  Bill  is  the  act  of  reconstituting 
the  army.  He  is  mistaken  in  one  vital  point.  The  army  is  an 
organization  created  by  general  laws ;  and  so  far  as  the  crea 
tion  of  officers  and  grades  is  concerned,  it  is  independent  of 
the  appropriation  bills.  The  supplies,  of  course,  come  through 
appropriations.  I  grant  that,  if  supplies  are  refused  to  the 
army,  it  must  perish  of  inanition ;  it  becomes  a  skeleton ;  but 
its  anatomy  was  created  by  general  law,  and  it  would  remain 
a  skeleton,  your  monument  of  starvation. 

The  gentleman  from  Virginia  says,  "  Unless  you  let  us  append 
a  condition  which  we  regard  a  redress  of  grievances,  we  will 
let  the  army  be  annihilated  on  the  3<Dth  of  next  June,  by  with 
holding  supplies."  That  is  legitimate  argument;  that  is  a  frank 
declaration  of  your  policy.  Let  us  examine  the  proposition. 
What  is  the  "grievance"  of  which  the  gentleman  complains? 
He  uses  the  word  "  grievance "  in  the  old  English  sense,  as 
though  the  king  were  thrusting  himself  in  the  way  of  the  nation 
by  making  a  war  contrary  to  the  nation's  wish.  But  his  "griev 
ance  "  is  a  law  of  the  land,  —  a  law  made  by  the  representatives 

1  Mr.  Tucker. 


676  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS. 

of  the  people, —  by  all  the  forms  of  consent  known  to  the 
Constitution.  It  is  his  "  grievance"  that  he  cannot  get  rid  of 
this  law  by  the  ordinary  and  constitutional  method  of  repeal. 
When  he  can  get  rid  of  any  law  by  the  union  of  all  consents 
required  to  make  or  unmake  a  law,  he  gets  rid  of  it  lawfully, 
whether  it  be  a  grievance  or  a  blessing ;  but  his  method  is  first 
to  call  a  law  a  "  grievance,"  and  then  try  to  get  rid  of  it  in 
defiance  of  the  processes  which  the  Constitution  prescribes  for 
the  law-making  power  of  the  nation.  I  denounce  his  method 
as  unconstitutional  and  revolutionary,  and  one  that  will  result 
in  far  greater  evil  than  that  of  which  he  complains.  If  he  goes 
to  the  American  people  with  the  proposition  to  annihilate  our 
army  on  the  3oth  of  June  next,  unless  the  President,  contrary 
to  his  conscience,  contrary  to  his  sense  of  duty,  shall  sign  what 
ever  Congress  may  send  him, — I  say  if  the  gentleman  from 
Virginia  puts  that  proposition  before  the  American  people,  we 
will  debate  it  in  the  forum  of  every  patriotic  heart,  and  will 
abide  the  result.  If  the  party  which,  after  eighteen  years' 
banishment  from  power,  has  come  back,  as  the  gentleman  from 
Kentucky1  said  yesterday,  to  its  "birthright  of  power,"  —  or 
"  heritage,"  as  it  is  recorded  in  the  Record  of  this  morning,  —  is 
to  signalize  its  return  by  striking  down  the  gallant  and  faithful 
army  of  the  United  States,  the  people  of  this  country  will  not 
be  slow  to  understand  that  there  are^reminiscences  of  that  army 
which  these  gentlemen  would  willingly  forget,  by  burying  both 
the  army  and  the  memories  of  its  great  service  to  the  Union  in 
one  grave.  We  do  not  seek  to  revive  the  unhappy  memories 
of tthe  war ;  but  we  are  unwilling  to  see  the  army  perish  at  the 
hands  of  Congress,  even  if  its  continued  existence  should  occa 
sionally  awaken  the  memory  of  its  former  glories. 

Now,  let  it  be  understood  once  for  all  that  we  do  not  deny  — 
we  have  never  denied  —  your  right  to  make  such  rules  for  this 
House  as  you  please.  Under  those  rules,  as  you  make  or  con 
strue  them,  you  may  put  all  your  legislation  upon  these  bills 
as  riders.  But  we  say  that,  whatever  your  rules  may  be,  you 
must  make  or  repeal  a  law  in  accordance  with  the  Constitution, 
by  the  triple  consent  to  which  I  referred  the  other  day,  or  you 
must  do  it  by  violence.  As  my  friend  from  Connecticut2  well 
said,  if  you  can  elect  a  President  and  a  Congress  in  1880,  you 
have  to  wait  only  two  years,  and  you  have  the  three  consents. 

1  Mr.  Blackburn.  2  Mr.  Hawley. 


REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS.  677 

You  can  then,  without  revolution,  tear  out  this  statute  and  all 
the  rest.  You  can  follow  out  the  programme  which  some  of 
your  members  have  suggested,  and  tear  out  one  by  one  the 
records  of  the  last  eighteen  years.  Some  of  them  are  glorious 
with  the  unquenchable  light  of  liberty;  some  of  them  stand  as 
the  noblest  trophies  of  freedom ;  but  with  full  power  in  your 
hands,  you  can  destroy  them.  But  we  *ask  you  to  restrain  your 
rage  against  them  until  you  have  the  lawful  power  to  smite 
them  down. 

My  friend  from  Virginia,  whom  I  know  to  be  a  master  and 
lover  of  mathematics,  has  formulated  his  argument  in  an  equa 
tion  :  "  Right  equals  duty  plus  power."  Now,  I  say  to  the 
gentleman  that  his  sense  of  duty  resides  in  his  own  breast ;  but 
power,  the  other  part  of  the  second  member  of  his  equation, 
must  be  found,  not  in  his  consciousness,  but  in  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.  His  notions  of  duty  lead  him  to  tear 
down  the  laws  which  the  republic  enacted  to  protect  the  purity 
of  national  elections,  and  to  use  such  force  as  may  be  necessary 
to  keep  the  peace  while  the  national  voice  is  finding  expression 
at  the  polls.  That,  I  say,  is  his  notion  of  duty,  of  which  he  is 
sole  arbiter ;  but  when  he  comes  to  superadd  power,  in  order  to 
complete  his  "  right "  as  a  legislator,  I  hope  he  will  not  evoke 
that  power  out  of  his  consciousness,  but  will  seek  for  it  in  the 
great  charter,  the  Constitution  of  the. United  States.  Accord 
ing  to  his  own  algebra,  he  must  have  both  these  elements 
before  he  can  claim  the  "  right "  to  overturn  these  laws  which 
he  denounces  as  grievances. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  let  me  add  a  word  in  conclusion,  lest  I 
may  be  misunderstood.  I  said  last  session,  and  I  have  said 
since,  that  if  you  want  this  whole  statute  concerning  the  use  of 
the  army  at  the  polls  torn  from  your  books,  I  will  help  you  to 
do  it.  If  you  will  offer  a  naked  proposition  to  repeal  those  two 
sections  of  the  Revised  Statutes  named  in  the  sixth  section  of 
this  bill,  I  will  vote  with  you.  But  you  do  not  ask  a  repeal  of 
those  sections.  Why?  They  impose  restrictions  upon  the  use 
of  the  army,  limiting  its  functions  and  punishing  its  officers  for 
any  infraction  of  these  limitations ;  but  you  seek  to  strike  out 
a  negative  clause,  thereby  making  new  and  affirmative  legisla 
tion  of  the  most  sweeping  and  dangerous  character.  Your  pro 
posed  modification  of  the  law  affects  not  the  army  alone,  but 
the  whole  civil  power  of  the  United  States.  Civil  officers  are 


678  REVOLUTION  IN  CONGRESS. 

included  in  these  sections ;  and  if  the  proposed  amendment  be 
adopted,  you  deny  to  every  civil  officer  of  the  United  States 
any  power  whatever  to  summon  the  armed  posse  to  help  him 
enforce  the  processes  of  the  law.  If  you  pass  the  section  in 
that  form,  you  impose  restrictions  upon  the  civil  authorities  of 
the  United  States  never  before  proposed  in  any  Congress  by 
any  legislator  since  this  government  began.  I  say,  therefore, 
in  the  shape  you  propose  it,  this  is  much  the  worst  of  all  your 
riders.  In  the  beginning  of  this  contest  we  understood  that 
you  desired  only  to  get  the  army  away  from  the  polls.  As  that 
would  still  leave  the  civil  officers  full  power  to  keep  the  peace 
at  the  polls,  I  thought  it  was  the  least  important  and  the  least 
dangerous  of  your  demands;  but  as  you  have  put  it  here,  it  is 
the  most  dangerous.  If  you  re-enact  it  in  the  shape  presented, 
it  becomes  a  later  law  than  the  supervisors'  and  marshals'  law, 
and  pro  tanto  repeals  the  latter.  As  it  stands  now  in  the  statute- 
book,  it  is  the  earlier  statute,  and  is  pro  tanto  itself  repealed  by 
the  marshals'  law  of  1871,  and  is  therefore  harmless  so  far  as 
it  relates  to  civil  officers ;  but  if  you  put  it  in  here,  you  deny 
the  power  of  the  marshals  of  the  United  States  to  perform*  their 
duties  whenever  a  riot  may  require  the  use  of  an  armed  posse. 

The  gentleman  from  Maryland1  said,  the  other  day,  there 
was  nothing  in  the  Constitution  which  empowered  any  officer 
of  the  United  States  to  keep  the  peace  in  the  States.  I  ask 
that  gentleman  to  tell  us  whether  the  United  States  has  no 
power  to  keep  the  peace  in  the  great  post-office  in  Baltimore, 
so  that  the  postmaster  may  attend  to  his  duties;  whether  it 
has  not  the  power  to  keep  the  peace  along  the  line  of  every 
railroad  that  carries  our  mails,  or  where  any  post-rider  of  the 
Star  Service  carries  the  mail  on  his  saddle ;  whether  it  has  not 
the  right,  if  need  be,  to  line  the  post-road  with  troops,  and 
to  bring  the  guns  of  the  navy  to  bear  to  protect  any  custom 
house  or  lighthouse  of  the  United  States.  And  yet,  if  the 
gentleman's  theory  be  correct,  we  cannot  enforce  a  single  civil 
process  of  this  government  by  the  aid  of  an  armed  posse,  with 
out  making  it  a  penitentiary  offence  on  the  part  of  the  officer 
who  does  it. 

1  Mr.  McLane. 


THE  NATIONAL  ELECTIONS  PROTECTED 
BY  NATIONAL  AUTHORITY. 

REMARKS  MADE  IN  THE   HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 
APRIL  26,  1879. 


THE  Legislative,  Executive,  and  Judicial  Appropriation  Bill  of  the  Extra 
Session  of  the  Forty-sixth  Congress  contained  "  political "  provisions  touch 
ing  jurors  in  the  United  States  courts,  supervisors  of  elections,  and  deputy 
marshals ;  the  great  point  being  so  to  change  the  laws  as  almost  wholly 
to  withdraw  the  national  power  and  authority  from  the  elections  of  the 
members  of  the  House  of  Representatives  in  the  States.1  Pending  this 
bill  Mr.  Garfield  made  the  following  remarks.  The  bill  passed  the  two 
houses,  but  was  vetoed  by  President  Hayes,  May  29. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN  —  I  had  intended  to  speak  somewhat 
elaborately  upon  this  bill,  but  I  have  preferred  to  give 
way  for  the  sake  of  allowing  those  who  had  not  spoken  an 
opportunity  to  be  heard.  I  would  not  rise  now  to  ask  the 
attention  of  the  House  at  all,  but  for  the  sake  of  correcting  a 
few  plain  misapprehensions  and  evasions  in  this  debate.  The 
gentleman  who  has  just  taken  his  seat2  has  said  that  I  have 
led  in  an  attempt  to  raise  sectional  feeling  in  the  North  against 
the  patriotic  people  of  the  South.  It  is  the  old  and  absurd  cry 
of  a  sectional  North  and  a  national  South ;  that  is,  the  thirty 
million  people  of  the  North,  and  their  representatives,  of  whom 
he  is  one,  are  sectional,  passionate,  unkind,  and  the  fifteen  mil 
lions  of  national-minded  and  patriotic  people  of  the  South  are 
suffering  from  this  narrow  and  unjust  sectionalism.  The  gen 
tleman  reminds  me  of  what  he  was  pleased  to  call  a  patriotic 

1  See  McPherson's  Handbook  of  Politics  for  1880,  p.  117,  for  these  provisions. 

2  Mr.  Ewing. 


680  THE  NATIONAL  ELECTIONS. 

sentiment  of  mine,  uttered  at  the  last  session  of  Congress,  when 
I  said  what  I  am  glad  to  have  remembered,  —  that  in  my  judg 
ment  the  man  or  political  party  who  sought  to  raise  sectional 
issues  and  revive  the  unhappy  passions  that  ought  to  sleep  in 
the  graves  of  our  dead  on  both  sides  was  not  patriotic,  and 
would  not  find  an  echo  in  the  hearts  of  the  best  people  of  this 
country.  I  said  that  deliberately,  with  all  the  meaning  that  the 
words  import. 

The  blindness  that  leads  my  colleague  to  call  two  thirds  of 
this  nation  sectional,  also  leads  him  to  think  my  denunciation 
of  those  who  reawaken  old  sectional  strife  can  apply  only  to 
Republicans.  Let  him  not  forget  the  origin  of  the  present 
controversy.  Who  raised  this  unhappy  issue?  Did  any  Repub 
lican  begin  it?  Was  it  not  brought  here  by  the  predetermined 
caucus  action  of  the  Democratic  party?  Was  it  not  embodied 
in  the  declaration  of  your  Senators  and  Representatives,  that,  if 
you  could  not  force  certain  acts  of  legislation  upon  the  statute- 
book,  you  would  never  grant  supplies  for  the  support  of  the 
government?  That  was  the  party  and  that  was  the  act  which 
raised  this  controversy,  involving  an  issue  never  raised  before  in 
this  nation ;  and,  because  we  meet  it  and  denounce  it,  you 
declare  that  we  who  stand  by  orderly  and  constitutional  meth 
ods  are  sectional,  and  you  who  make  the  innovation  are  na 
tional  ! 

Gentlemen,  I  took  upon  myself  a  very  grave  responsibility  in 
the  opening  of  this  debate,  when  I  quoted  the  declarations  of 
leading  members  on  the  other  side,  and  said  that  the  pro 
gramme  was  revolution,  and,  if  not  abandoned,  would  result  in 
the  destruction  of  this  government.  I  declared  that  you  had 
entered  upon  a  scheme  which,  if  persisted  in,  would  starve  the 
government  to  death.  I  say  that  I  took  a  great  risk  when  I 
made  this  charge  against  you  as  a  party.  I  put  myself  in  your 
power,  gentlemen.  If  I  had  misconceived  your  purposes  and 
misrepresented  your  motives,  it  was  in  your  power  to  prove  me 
a  false  accuser.  It  was  in  your  power  to  ruin  me  in  the  estima 
tion  of  fair-minded,  patriotic  men,  by  one  utterance.  The  hum 
blest  or  the  greatest  of  you  could  have  overwhelmed  me  with 
shame  and  confusion  in  one  short  sentence.  You  could  have 
said,  "  We  wish  to  pass  our  measures  of  legislation  in  reference 
to  elections,  juries,  and  the  use  of  the  army,  and  we  will  if  we 
can  do  so  constitutionally;  but  if  we  cannot  get  these  measures 


THE  NATIONAL  ELECTIONS.  68 1 

in  accordance  with  the  Constitution,  we  will  pass  the  appropria 
tion  bills  like  loyal  representatives,  and  then  go  home  and 
appeal  to  the  people."  If  any  man,  speaking  for  the  majority, 
had  made  that  declaration,  uttered  that  sentence,  he  would  have 
ruined  me  in  the  estimation  of  fair-minded  men,  and  set  me 
down  as  a  false  accuser.  Forty-five  of  you  have  spoken ;  forty- 
five  of  you  have  deluged  the  ear  of  this  country  with  debate ; 
but  that  sentence  has  not  been  spoken  by  any  one  of  you.  On 
the  contrary,  by  your  silence,  as  well  as  by  your  affirmation, 
you  have  made  my  accusation  overwhelmingly  true.  And  there 
I  leave  that  controversy.  The  assaults  upon  my  speech  have 
been,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  evasions  of  the  issue. 
What  have  you  said?  Not  less  than  thirty  of  you,  in  spite  of 
my  plain  and  emphatic  declarations  to  the  contrary,  have  in 
sisted  that  I  said  it  was  revolutionary  to  put  a  rider  on  an 
appropriation  bill,  —  a  thing  that  no  man  on  this  side  of  the 
House  has  said.  You  were  guilty,  gentlemen,  and  in  this  I  in 
clude  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania,1  of  what  Sydney  Smith 
once  called  "  an  indecent  exposure  of  your  intellects." 

MR.  KELLEY.  Did  I  misunderstand  you  when  I  said  that  your  speech, 
which  lay  before  me,  had  the  title  of  "  Revolution  in  Congress,"  and  said, 
if  the  gentleman  believed  that  doctrine  now,  he  had  undergone  a  mental 
revolution  ? 

The  gentleman  should  not  confine  his  reading  to  the  title.  If 
he  had  read  my  speech  as  well  as  its  title,  he  would  have  read 
that  in  1872,  in  the  debate  to  which  he  referred,  the  Democratic 
party  on  this  floor  said  we  should  not  even  consider  an  appro 
priation  bill.  I  said  to  them,  "  You  have  a  right  to  vote  against 
it,  you  have  a  right  to  filibuster  to  get  a  chance  to  discuss  it 
if  need  be,  but  when  you  say  that  the  majority  shall  not  act 
on  an  appropriation  bill  at  all,  because  there  is  a  rider  on  it, 
that  is  parliamentary  revolution  " ;  and  so  I  say  to-day.  The 
gentleman  quoted  that  as  though  it  were  inconsistent  with  my 
present  position.  In  1872  the  Democracy  said  the  appropria 
tion  bill  should  not  be  acted  on  at  all  because  a  rider  was  on  it; 
now  they  say  the  appropriation  bills  shall  not  be  acted  upon  at 
all  unless  there  are  riders  on  them.  I  resisted  their  position 
then,  and  I  resist  it  now. 

There  is  another  point  which  I  must  touch  to  show  the  eva 
sions  which  have  been  resorted  to  in  this  debate.  The  other 

1  Mr.  Kelley. 


682  THE  NATIONAL  ELECTIONS. 

side  seeks  to  go  before  the  country  on  pleas  like  this,  which 
stands  as  the  heading  of  the  speech  of  the  distinguished  gentle 
man  from  Virginia,1 — "  Elections  by  the  people  must  be  free 
from  the  power  and  presence  of  the  standing  army."  They 
seek  to  make  the  people  believe  that  Democrats  in  Congress 
are  struggling  to  get  the  bayonets  away  from  the  breasts  of 
the  voters,  and  that  we  are  striving  to  keep  them  there.  The 
Democratic  press  is  everywhere  stating  the  issue  in  this  way,  — 
that  the  Republicans  are  defending  an  odious  law,  enacted  amid 
the  passions  of  the  war,  to  authorize  the  use  of  the  army  at 
State  elections.  "  Mark  now,  how  a  plain  tale  shall  put  you 
down." 

On  this  side  of  the  hall  this  proposition  was  made :  If  you 
find  fault  with  the  law  of  1865,  we  will  help  you  repeal  it  alto 
gether.  On  the  motion  of  the  distinguished  gentleman  from 
Michigan,2  every  Republican  on  this  floor  who  voted  at  all  when 
the  Army  Bill  was  here  voted  to  repeal  in  toto  the  law  of  1865, 
which  you  complained  of  to  the  people  as  putting  the  bayonets 
at  the  breasts  of  the  voters ;  and  every  Democrat  who  voted  at 
all  voted  "  No."  You  would  not  repeal  the  law,  but  you  told  the 
people  we  were  trying  to  keep  it  on  the  statute-books,  and  you 
were  trying  to  get  it  off.  Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  our  vote  on  that 
subject  has  put  us  beyond  all  cavil  on  this  high  and  unassail 
able  ground.  We  are  willing  to  repeal,  and  we  have  voted  to 
repeal,  the  whole  of  that  law,  and  we  even  went  so  far  as  to  put 
that  repeal  on  the  Army  Bill,  and  you  voted  against  it.  Now, 
never  again  go  to  the  people  and  say  you  tried  to  repeal  the 
odious  law  of  1865  and  the  Republicans  would  not  let  you. 

My  colleague  3  who  has  just  taken  his  seat  says  that  the  sec 
tions  sought  to  be  repealed  by  the  bill  now  before  us  authorize 
unwarrantable  and  unconstitutional  interference  with  elections  in 
the  States.  He  says  that  the  supervisors  and  marshals  are  in 
truders  at  the  elections  of  Congressmen ;  that  they  have  no  con 
stitutional  right  to  be  there,  even  as  witnesses.  Gentlemen,  I 
never  believed  in  State  rights  to  the  extent  you  did  and  do ;  but 
there  is  one  thing  concerning  which  I  have  always  thought  that 
the  States  came  very  near  being  sovereign.  I  suppose  that  all 
our  States  claim  the  right  to  have  a  legislature  of  two  houses, 
each  house  having  a  right  to  make  its  own  rules,  sit  in  its  own 
separate  chamber,  pass  measures  according  to  its  own  rules,  and 

1  Mr.  Tucker.  2  Mr.  Conger.  8  Mr.  Ewing, 


THE  NATIONAL  ELECTIONS.  683 

regulate  the  conduct  of  its  own  clerks.  Yet,  gentlemen,  if  you 
will  read  from  Section  14  to  Section  19  of  the  Revised  Stat 
utes,  you  will  find  that  this  is  what  has  been  done.  The  su 
preme  power  of  the  United  States,  by  force  of  national  law, 
has  gone  into  the  legislature  of  every  State  in  this  Union, 
and  said  to  them :  "  There  is  a  certain  Tuesday,  the  second 
Tuesday  after  you  have  organized,  when  you  shall  not  fix  your 
own  time  of  meeting;  when  you  shall  not  even  adjourn  over. 
You  shall  meet  at  twelve  o'clock.  When  you  meet  you  shall 
not  vote  by  ballot ;  you  shall  vote  viva  voce.  Your  clerk  shall 
call  the  roll.  You  shall  vote  for  a  United  States  Senator."  The 
law  prescribes  how  the  clerks  of  both  houses  shall  make  the 
entries  in  their  journals.  If  there  is  no  election,  the  clerk  shall 
certify  it;  and  then  this  national  authority  says :  "  If  there  is 
no  election  by  the  separate  vote  of  the  two  houses  the  second 
day,  I  take  your  two  houses  and  consolidate  them  into  one.  I 
abolish  the  distinction  between  Senator  and  Representative,  put 
them  into  one  hall,  and  hold  them  in  joint  session  from  day  to 
day,  and  they  shall  vote  as  one  body  until  a  Senator  is  elected." 
Who  does  all  that  to  State  legislatures?  It  is  done  by  a  law  of 
the  United  States  passed  in  July,  1866;  and  no  Democrat  has 
denounced  that  law  as  unconstitutional,  no  State  legislature  has 
made  any  opposition  to  it,  and  every  one  of  the  seventy-six 
Senators  now  at  the  other  end  of  this  Capitol  holds  his  seat  in 
pursuance  of  its  operation.  Now,  if  we  do  all  that  unchal 
lenged  to  the  legislature  of  a  sovereign  State,  who  will  say  that 
we  cannot  go  among  our  own  citizens  and  supervise  and  pro 
tect  our  own  ballot-boxes  where  men  are  to  be  elected  to  seats 
on  this  floor?  Your  constitutional  question  is  given  away  when 
you  admit  the  supervisors  there  at  all,  as  you  do  in  this  bill ; 
still  more  decisively  is  it  given  away  by  the  universal  acquies 
cence  in  the  law  for  electing  Senators. 

The  great  danger  which  threatens  this  country  is,  that  our 
sovereign  may  be  dethroned  or  destroyed  by  corruption.  In 
any  monarchy  of  the  world,  if  the  sovereign  be  slain,  or  become 
lunatic,  it  is  easy  to  put  another  in  his  place,  for  the  sovereign 
is  a  person.  But  our  sovereign  is  the  whole  body  of  voters. 
If  you  kill,  or  corrupt  our  sovereign,  or  he  'becomes  a  lunatic, 
there  is  no  successor,  no  regent,  to  take  his  place.  The  source 
of  our  sovereign's  supreme  danger,  the  point  where  his  life  is 
vulnerable,  is  the  ballot-box,  where  his  will  is  declared ;  and  if 


684  THE  NATIONAL  ELECTIONS. 

Ee  cannot  stand  by  that  ballot-box,  and  protect  it  to  the  utter- 
ost  against  all  assassins  and  assailants,  we  have  no  govern- 
ent  and  no  safety  for  the  future. 

MR.  EWING.  I  hope  the  House  will  allow  me  to  ask  the  gentleman  a 
question,  and  him  to  reply.  I  ask  the  gentleman,  May  we  therefore  au 
thorize  United  States  supervisors  to  inspect  the  officers  of  the  House  and 
Senate  of  each  State  as  to  the  manner  of  election  when  electing  a  United 
States  Senator,  and  appoint  marshals  to  back  up  the  supervisors,  and 
send  out  the  army  to  back  up  the  marshals  ? 

Not  at  all.  The  gentleman  from  New  Jersey1  answered  that 
by  anticipation.  Our  Constitution  adopted  the  legislatures  of 
the  States  as  our  agents  to  elect  Senators  at  the  times  and  in 
the  manner  which  Congress  may  by  law  direct.  They  were 
adopted  as  bodies  organized  under  State  la'ws.  For  the  elec 
tion  of  Representatives  to  this  House,  we  may  set  up  all  our  own 
machinery  if  we  please.  We  may  adopt  the  State  machinery, 
and  superadd  our  own  national  superintendence  and  safeguards ; 
and  the  safeguards  which  have  already  been  established  we  will 
maintain  and  defend. 

1  Mr.  Robeson. 


CONGRESSIONAL    NULLIFICATION. 

REMARKS  MADE  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 
JUNE  10,  1879. 


PRESIDENT  HAYES  vetoed  the  Legislative,  Executive,  and  Judicial  Ap 
propriation  Bill,  May  29,  1879.  A  new  ^  bearing  the  same  title  was 
now  brought  forward,  which  omitted  the  appropriations  for  jurors  and 
marshals.  This  bill  carried  no  "riders";  it  was  passed  by  the  almost 
unanimous  votes  of  both  houses,  and  was  approved  by  the  President, 
June  19.  The  appropriations  for  paying  supervisors  and  deputy-marshals 
were  put  in  a  separate  bill,  called  "  Certain  Judicial  Expenses  Bill,"  which 
contained  the  obnoxious  features  relative  to  those  subjects.  More  spe 
cifically,  it  made  no  provision  for  executing  Title  26  of  the  Revised  Stat 
utes,  or  any  provision  of  said  title.  This  title  covers  the  appointment  of 
deputy-marshals,  their  duties  in  relation  to  enforcing  the  election  laws, 
their  pay,  etc.1  Mr.  McMahon,  of  Ohio,  who  reported  the  bill,  said  the 
"  political "  features  were  "  intended  to  prevent  the  enforcement  of  the 
supervisors  and  deputy-marshals  clauses  of  the  Revised  Statutes  during 
the  next  fiscal  year,  so  far  as  a  failure  to  appropriate  money  for  their 
compensation  will  effect  that  purpose."  It  repealed  Sections  820  and 
821  of  the  Revised  Statutes,  and  contained  the  old  provision  concerning 
jurors.  The  Republicans  opposed  the  bill.  While  it  was  pending  in  the 
House,  Mr.  Garfield  spoke  on  its  several  sections  as  follows.  The  later 
history  of  the  measure  is  shown  in  the  introduction  to  the  next  speech. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,— Those  provisions  of  this  bill  which 
itemize  the  expenses  of  the  courts  are  in  the  right  di 
rection,  —  the  direction  of  economy  and  a  prudent  regard  for 
the  safe  disbursement  of  the  public  funds.  I  welcome  them  in 
this  respect  as  in  pursuance  of  a  policy  which  we  ought  always 
to  approve. 

1  See  McPherson's  Political  Hand-Book  for  1880,  p.  125. 


686  CONGRESSIONAL    NULLIFICATION. 

In  so  far  as  the  bill  creates  unnecessary  deficiencies,  as  has 
been  stated  by  the  gentleman  from  New  York,1  it  is  objection 
able.  The  fair  and  manly  course  for  the  House  to  pursue  is  to 
appropriate  what  is  fully  adequate,  and  no  more,  to  meet  the 
expenses  of  the  current  fiscal  year.  The  opposite  course  has 
been  frequently  pursued  by  political  parties ;  but,  in  the  long 
run,  it  has  been  found  unwise  to  make  an  apparent  reduc 
tion  of  expenditures,  knowing  that  the  supplies  withheld  must 
be  made  up  by  subsequent  deficiency  bills.  There  is  no  real 
gain  to  any  party  in  the  end ;  and  it  is  a  bad  way  to  man 
age  the  fiscal  affairs  of  the  government.  I  hope,  therefore, 
whatever  amendment  this  bill  may  need  in  that  respect  will  be 
made,  and  that  the  full  amount  required  for  the  actual  service 
of  the  year  will  be  added.  In  reference  to  the  two  clauses 
which  have  been  referred  to  by  the  gentleman  from  New  York, 
and  which  are  found  on  pages  2  and  3  of  the  bill,  I  shall  make 
a  few  observations. 

It  is  not  a  valid  objection  to  the  passage  of  an  appropriation 
bill  that  it  does  not  embrace  all  the  objects  for  which  appropri 
ations  should  be  made.  We  cannot  justly  vote  against  appro 
priations  which  are  proper  in  themselves  merely  because  the 
amounts  are  not  large  enough.  But  there  is  a  clause  at  the 
end  of  the  first  section,  which  is  something  more  than  a 
mere  omission  to  make  a  necessary  appropriation.  I  read 
it  :  "  No  part  of  the  money  hereby  appropriated  is  appro 
priated  to  pay  any  salaries,  compensations,  fees,  expenses, 
under  or  in  virtue  of  Title  26  of  the  Revised  Statutes."  It 
is  fair  to  inquire  whether  those  statutes  do  not  command  the 
executive  officers  of  the  government  to  perform  some  posi 
tive  duties,  and  whether  by  this  clause  we  are  not  only  neg 
lecting  to  appropriate  money,  but  are  virtually  nullifying  the 
law  by  preventing  its  enforcement.  If  the  clause  which  I  have 
read  stood  alone,  it  would  be  less  objectionable;  but  taken  in 
connection  with  the  second  section,  which  I  will  read  presently, 
it  amounts  to  a  legislative  prohibition,  for  one  year,  to  enforce 
the  provisions  of  Title  26.  The  sections  of  that  title  are  the 
laws  which  this  House  and  the  Senate  have  vainly  tried  to  re 
peal,  and  have  found  they  have  not  the  constitutional  power  to 
do  so.  We  were  told,  in  the  outset,  that  these  laws  should  be 
repealed,  or  no  appropriations  would  be  made.  But  it  has  been 

i  Mr.  Hiscock. 


CONGRESSIONAL  NULLIFICATION.  687 

demonstrated  to  the  most  unobservant,  that  the  present  Con 
gress  is  powerless  to  repeal  these  laws,  and  the  attempt  has 
been  wisely  abandoned.  The  chief  amounts  needed  for  the 
support  of  the  civil  departments  were  appropriated  in  the  bill 
which  we  passed  yesterday,1  with  no  provision  for  repealing  or 
modifying  the  law;  but  now  the  Committee  on  Appropriations 
propose  a  bill  by  which,  for  the  coming  year,  these  laws  shall 
be,  not  repealed,  but  not  enforced,  —  nullified.  Now,  gentle 
men,  that  is  only  an  indirect  way  of  doing  temporarily,  for  one 
year,  what  you  have  no  constitutional  authority  to  do  absolutely 
and  permanently.  This  provision  ought  to  be  stricken  out.  As 
I  have  already  intimated,  the  clause  to  which  I  have  referred 
draws  its  evil  inspiration  from  the  provisions  of  the  second  sec 
tion,  which  I  will  now  read :  — 

"  That  the  sums  appropriated  in  this  act  for  the  persons  and  public 
service  embraced  in  its  provisions  are  in  full  for  such  persons  and  public 
service  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1 880 ;  and  no  department  or 
officer  of  the  government  shall,  during  said  fiscal  year,  make  any  con 
tract,  or  incur  any  liability  for  the  future  payment  of  money,  until  an 
appropriation  sufficient  to  meet  such  contract,  or  pay  such  liability,  shall 
have  first  been  made  by  law." 

Mr.  Chairman,  let  us  consider  the  effect  of  this  section  upon 
existing  law. 

MR.  Cox.  I  desire  to  ask  the  gentleman  whether  what  he  has  just 
read  is  not  substantially  the  law  now. 

My  remarks  will  soon  answer  the  gentleman.  In  1870,  in 
order  to  prevent  the  extravagant  use  of  the  public  money,  Con 
gress  passed  a  law  restricting  the  expenditures  for  any  one  year 
to  the  appropriations  made  for  that  year;  that  is,  if  the  ap 
propriations  made  for  the  year  were  not  sufficient,  a  deficiency 
must  be  asked  for.  Unexpended  balances  remaining  from  pre 
vious  years  could  not  be  applied  to  meet  deficiencies.  This 
was  a  wise  provision.  Then  it  was  found  that  there  was  a  ten 
dency  to  incur  obligations  by  making  contracts,  such  as  for  the 
rent  of  buildings,  the  lease  extending  over  a  series  of  years 
ahead.  Thus  obligations  were  incurred  for  which  no  appropri 
ations  of  money  had  been  made.  To  check  that  tendency,  Sec 
tion  3679  of  the  Revised  Statutes  was  enacted,  in  these  words: 
"  No  department  of  the  government  shall  expend,  in  any  one 
1  Namely,  the  new  Legislative  Bill,  mentioned  in  the  introductory  note. 


688  CONGRESSIONAL  NULLIFICATION. 

fiscal  year,  any  sum  in  excess  of  appropriations  made  by  Con 
gress  for  that  fiscal  year,  or  involve  the  government  in  any 
contract  for  the  future  payment  of  money  in  excess  of  such 
appropriations."  Now,  in  part  materia,  as  part  of  the  same 
general  prohibition,  gentlemen  will  find,  in  Section  3732,  this 
enactment:  "  No  contract  or  purchase  on  behalf  of  the  United 
States  shall  be  made,  unless  the  same  is  authorized  by  law,  or  is 
under  an  appropriation  adequate  to  its  fulfilment,  except  —  " 
and  here  is  an  important  exception  that  gentlemen  appear  to 
have  overlooked,  and  it  answers  the  question  of  the  gentleman 
from  New  York —  "  except  in  the  War  and  Navy  Departments, 
for  clothing,  subsistence,  forage,  fuel,  quarters,  or  transporta 
tion,  which,  however,  shall  'not  exceed  the  necessities  of  the 
current  year."  Perhaps  this  section  may  throw  a  little  side 
light  on  another  bill  which  is  shortly  to  be  before  us,  in  regard 
to  feeding,  clothing,  and  transporting  the  army.  Under  the 
laws  as  they  now  stand,  if  Congress  neglects  to  pass  the  regular 
appropriation  bills,  or  if  the  appropriations  run  out,  still  the 
army  is  to  be  fed,  and  not  starved ;  clothed,  and  not  left  naked ; 
transported  to  points  of  danger,  and  not  left  idle  and  useless. 
So  also  with  the  navy.  But  the  pending  bill  contains  a  section 
which  for  one  year  nullifies  Section  3732,  for  it  makes  no  excep 
tion  for  the  army  and  navy. 

MR.  CARLISLE.   Did  not  the  act  of  1 8  70  repeal  all  that  ? 

No,  sir. 

MR.  CARLISLE.   Why  not  ? 

Because  of  the  exception  which  I  have  just  read  with  refer 
ence  to  the  army  and  the  navy,  which  has  never  been  construed 
as  repealed. 

MR.  CARLISLE.  You  have  read  the  exceptions  in  the  act  of  1861  ;  but 
the  act  of  1870,  a  later  statute,  contained  no  exceptions  whatever. 

I  have  read  from  the  Revised  Statutes  now  in  force  two  ex 
ceptions  which  must  be  construed  together ;  one  does  not  repeal 
the  other. 

MR.  CARLISLE.   How  did  that  provision  get  there  ? 

It  is  enough  for  me  to  know  that  this  is  the   law.     Both  sec 
tions  have  been  adopted  by  Congress  in  the  revision  of  1874. 
But  this  is  not  all.     Besides  nullifying  the  exceptions  of  Sec- 


CONGRESSIONAL   NULLIFICATION.  689 

tion  3732  for  the  coming  year,  there  is  imported  into  this  sec 
ond  section  of  the  bill  a  new  term.  Before  this,  outside  of  these 
exceptions,  a  department  could  not  make  a  contract,  a  written 
contract,  binding  the  government  to  pay  money  for  an  object 
for  which  no  appropriation  had  been  made.  That  was  wise  and 
judicious,  for  it  prevented  the  departments  from  entering  into 
large  schemes  that  bound  the  government  in  advance  of  the  ac 
tion  of  Congress.  But  here  is  another  expression  not  known  in 
our  existing  statutes :  "  No  department  or  officer  of  the  gov 
ernment  shall  ....  make  any  contract  or  incur  any  liability." 
Here  is  a  provision  which  is  much  broader  than  any  that  can  be 
found  in  the  statutes,  as  every  lawyer  will  concede.  "  Incur  any 
liability."  What  does  that  mean?  Suppose  the  President  of 
the  United  States  should  think  it  important  to  send  a  minister 
extraordinary  to  some  foreign  court,  being  authorized  thereto 
by  the  Constitution,  and  in  an  emergency  should  send  him. 
Would  he  incur  a  liability?  Certainly.  Suppose  he  had  been 
ordered  by  Congress  to  do  it;  suppose  it  was  made  mandatory 
under  the  law,  but  there  happened  to  be  no  special  appropria 
tion  for  it,  and  he  should  make  the  appointment,  would  he  in 
cur  a  liability  for  which  an  appropriation  had  not  first  been 
made?  Suppose  it  should  so  happen  that  a  new  judicial  dis 
trict  had  been  created  by  act  of  Congress,  and  the  President 
had  been  ordered  by  law  to  appoint  a  judge,  but  no  appropria 
tion  had  been  made  for  the  salary  of  the  judge.  The  Presi 
dent  in  appointing  that  judge  according  to  law  incurs  a  liability 
for  the  government  to  pay  the  salary.  In  short,  any  execu 
tive  act,  which  by  law  he  is  commanded  to  perform,  he  is  here 
forbidden  to  perform  during  the  coming  year,  because  in  doing 
so  he  incurs  a  liability  for  which  an  appropriation  has  not  been 
specially  made  in  advance. 

The  object  of  this  legislation  is  plain.  During  the  coming 
year  there  is  to  be  an  election  for  members  of  Congress  in  the 
State  of  California,  and  one  in  the  Westchester  district  of  New 
York  to  fill  a  vacancy ;  and  this  legislation  is  levelled  at  these 
elections,  so  that  neither  the  courts  nor  the  marshals  shall  ap 
point  deputy  marshals  to  act  as  official  witnesses,  or  to  keep  the 
peace  at  those  elections,  in  order  that  the  United  States  may 
be  properly  and  lawfully  present  at  the  creation  of  its  own  legis 
lators.  This  legislation  is  an  attempt  to  prevent  the  United 
States'  being  present  at  those  two  elections  which  are  to  be  held 

VOL.  II.  44 


690  CONGRESSIONAL  NULLIFICATION. 

during  the  coming  summer.  It  is  an  attempt  to  accomplish  by 
indirection  what  cannot  be  done  by  an  open  and  plain  repeal. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  as  we  have  successfully  resisted  the  repeal 
of  righteous  laws,  in  spite  of  the  threat  that  the  appropriations 
would  be  refused,  none  the  less  will  we  resist  their  nullification. 
The  chapter  of  forced  repeal  seems  to  be  closed.  Gentlemen 
have  abandoned  it.  But  the  chapter  of  nullifying  laws  is  now 
opened.  Again  we  stand  upon  the  unassailable  proposition, 
not  only  that  these  just  laws  shall  remain  upon  the  statute- 
book,  but  that  they  shall  be  executed.  If  you  do  not  appropri 
ate  the  money,  we  cannot  help  ourselves ;  we  are  powerless  to 
appropriate  it  without  your  aid;  you  are  the  majority;  but  not 
by  our  consent  shall  you  nullify  a  law  which  the  Constitution 
does  not  permit  you  to  repeal. 

MR.  SPRINGER.  I  rise  to  ask  the  gentleman  the  question  whether  it  was 
not  within  the  province  of  a  majority  of  this  House  and  of  the  Senate  to 
withhold  appropriations  for  any  purpose  that  they  might  desire. 

O,  yes. 

MR.  SPRINGER.  What  complaint,  then,  have  you  to  make  against  the 
majority  of  this  House  and  of  the  other  house  for  refusing  appropria 
tions  for  objects  which  they  deem  subversive  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of 
the  people  ? 

I  answer  the  gentleman  from  Illinois  by  a  quotation  from  the 
distinguished  gentleman  from  Virginia,1  who  is  not  now  here. 
He  defined  right  to  be  equal  to  power  plus  duty.  Now  you 
have  the  power  to  withhold  appropriations  for  executing  the 
laws,  but  have  you  the  right?  Your  power  and  your  duty  put 
together  constitute  your  right  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word. 
Of  course  you  are  your  own  judges  of  duty.  But  we  are  all 
here,  Mr.  Chairman,  under  the  solemn  obligation  of  an  oath. 
We  are  sworn,  before  the  Searcher  of  all  hearts,  that  we  will 
well  and  faithfully  perform  the  duties  of  Representatives  under 
the  Constitution.  And  the  Constitution  makes  it  our  duty  to 
appropriate  the  necessary  means  to  enforce  the  laws.  The  Con 
stitution  provides  that  the  judges,  the  President,  and  other  offi 
cers,  shall  receive  a  fixed  compensation  at  stated  times,  and  this 
can  be  done  only  by  our  being  faithful  to  our  oaths.  Will  the 
gentleman  deny  that  we  are  under  a  solemn  obligation  to  make 
all  the  appropriations  necessary  to  carry  on  the  government  and 
execute  the  laws  of  the  United  States?  If  any  gentlemen  here 

1  Mr.  Tucker. 


CONGRESSIONAL  NULLIFICATION.  691 

see  fit  to  neglect  that  high  duty  and  violate  that  great  obliga 
tion,  they  must  answer  to  their  own  constituents,  to  their  con 
sciences,  and  to  God.  But  as  for  me,  I  hold  that  to  appropriate 
the  money  required  by  the  law  is  my  duty;  and  my  vote  shall 
be  for  the  appropriations  under  the  laws  as  they  are,  and  not 
coupled  with  acts  which  nullify  or  obstruct  them.  There  has 
come  into  our  treasury  during  the  last  year  $235,000,000. 
Every  dollar  of  that  money  came  from  the  people,  under  the 
sanction  of  laws  which  were  passed  for  the  express  purpose  of 
raising  money  for  the  support  of  the  government.  That  money 
is  in  the  treasury  for  that  purpose;  and  we  are  the  trustees  of 
the  fund  under  the  law  and  the  Constitution.  The  people  paid 
it  without  imposing  any  conditions ;  they  paid  it  under  the  laws 
as  they  now  exist,  to  support  the  government.  Therefore,  if 
we,  the  trustees  of  that  great  fund,  step  in  between  those  for 
whom  we  hold  the  trust  and  the  execution  of  the  trust,  and  say 
we  will  not  apply  this  money  according  to  the  laws  under  which 
we  received  it,  but  will  impose  conditions  of  our  own,  different 
from  those  under  which  they  paid  it,  are  we  not  betrayers  of  a 
trust,  and  violators  of  the  Constitution? 


DURING  the  debate  on  the  second  section  of  the  bill,  the  same  day,  Mr. 
Garfield  said  :  — 

MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —  I  move  to  amend  by  striking  out  in  line  6, 
section  2,  the  words  "  or  incur  any  liability."  I  do  that  because 
it  will  leave  the  statutes  on  the  subject  plain  and  unambiguous. 
If  these  words  are  out,  the  remainder  of  the  provision  is  not 
unlike  what  is  now  in  the  law,  and  I  think  there  would  be  no 
ambiguity  in  the  section ;  but  if  these  words  be  retained,  no 
man  can  know  precisely  what  he  may  or  may  not  do  without 
violating  the  law.  I  do  not  myself  think  that,  strictly  and 
properly  construed,  this  section  suspends  certain  sections  of 
the  Revised  Statutes  which  some  gentlemen  may  think  are  sus 
pended  ;  but  these  words  leave  an  uncertainty  hanging  over 
some  sections  as  to  what  constitutes  incurring  liability. 

I  can  conceive  such  a  thing  as  this.  The  President  may  ap 
point  a  man  to  some  place,  and  say  to  him,  "  Go  and  do  this 
duty;  the  law  authorizes  me  to  appoint  you.  You  may  never 
receive  any  pay.  You  will  never  receive  any  unless  Congress 
appropriates  it  hereafter."  Possibly  the  President  would  not 


692  CONGRESSIONAL  NULLIFICATION. 

thereby  incur  any  liability.  I  presume,  when  election  day 
comes,  the  judges  can  appoint  supervisors  and  the  marshals 
can  appoint  assistant  marshals  in  the  same  way.  There  is  cer 
tainly  nothing  here  which  prevents  them  from  doing  their  duty; 
and  if  they  are  told  at  the  time  of  their  appointment  that  they 
never  can  have  any  pay  from  the  government  unless  Congress 
should  thereafter  appropriate  it,  query  whether  any  liability 
has  been  incurred.  I  rather  think  not. 
MR.  SPRINGER.  I  should  think  there  had  been. 

I  think  not.  The  liability  spoken  of  here  is  certainly  a  pecu 
niary  one.  But  if  the  gentleman  thinks  there  is  liability,  it 
proves  the  necessity  of  making  the  language  clear,  which  cer 
tainly  will  be  done  by  striking  out  the  words  which  render  it 
doubtful. 

Now,  if  gentlemen  have  put  these  words  in  here  to  suit  two 
views  of  the  case,  so  that  they  can  say  to  one  class  of  men, 
"  We  have  done  it,"  and  to  another,  "  We  have  not  done  it,"  — 
I  say  if  they  have  a  double  purpose  in  view,  these  words  are 
well  chosen.  But  if  they  have  a  plain,  frank,  manly  purpose 
in  view,  that  everybody  can  understand,  they  should  leave  these 
words  out.  I  think,  therefore,  for  the  honor  of  the  House 
and  for  the  clearness  and  definiteness  of  the  statutes,  these 
words  ought  to  come  out;  and  in  the  interest  of  good  legisla 
tion  I  make  the  motion  to  strike  them  out. 

MR.  Cox.  I  understand  my  friend  from  Ohio  to  say  that  he  believes 
United  States  supervisors  and  others  will  be  appointed. 

I  did  not  say  they  would  be,  but  perhaps  they  can  be  — 
MR.  Cox.     That  the  President  and  the  judges  would  appoint  them 
under  this  clause  if  passed,  —  that  they  would  be  appointed  ? 

The  gentleman  will  understand  that  I  am  merely  saying,  if  it 
should  be  done,  and  they  were  told  they  never  could  have  any 
pay  until  Congress  subsequently  appropriated  the  money,  —  I 
refer  to  deputy  marshals,  —  I  doubt  whether  that  would  consti 
tute  under  this  section  an  incurred  liability. 


IN  the  debate  on  the  third  section,  relating  to  jurors,  the  same  day, 
Mr.  Garfield  said  :  — 

I  OFFER  the  following  amendment.    In  line  16,  after  the  word 
"  citizen,"  insert  the  words  "  of  good  standing"  ;   and  strike  out 


CONGRESSIONAL  NULLIFICATION.  693 

all  after  the  word  "held,"  in  line  17,  down  to  and  including  the 
word  "belong,"  in  line  19;  so  that  it  will  read,  "Which  commis 
sioner  shall  be  a  citizen  of  good  standing  residing  in  the  district 
in  which  such  court  is  held."  This  will  strike  out  the  words, 
"  and  a  well-known  member  of  the  principal  political  party 
opposed  to  that  to  which  the  clerk  may  belong." 

I  offer  this  amendment  because  I  am  unwilling,  if  I  can  pre 
vent  it,  to  allow  a  statute  to  pass  this  House  which,  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  this  government,  injects  party  politics 
into  our  jury  laws.  The  words  "  political  parties  "  are  unknown 
in  our  Constitution.  There  is  not  a  word  in  the  Constitution 
that  indicates  such  a  creation  as  a  political  party.  Political  par 
ties  are  probably  necessary  in  all  free  governments ;  but  there 
has  been  one  place  in  the  whole  circle  of  our  judicial  system 
into  which  hitherto  the  word  party  has  never  found  its  place  as 
a  part  of  the  law.  The  goddess  of  justice,  so  far  as  persons  are 
concerned,  is  blind;  but  so  far  as  the  objects  and  essence  of 
justice  are  concerned,  she  sees  the  whole  world. 

Now  it  is  proposed,  most  unwisely,  and  I  think  for  the  first 
time  in  our  history,  (and  I  beg  the  lawyers  and  judges  who  sit 
before  me  to  think  of  this,)  to  put  into  the  jury-boxes  a  man 
recognized  as  a  political  partisan,  and  then  another  beside  him 
recognized  as  belonging  to  another  political  party,  to  administer 
justice.  One  is  to  do  Democratic  justice,  another  Republican 
justice,  another  Greenback  justice,  and  so  on  to  the  end  of  the 
chapter.  If  these  obnoxious  words  be  planted  in  our  law,  no 
man  can  tell  the  bitter,  bad  fruits  that  it  may  produce  in  our 
jurisprudence  in  the  future.  Let  us,  gentlemen,  have  one  place 
where,  as  lawyers  and  citizens,  there  shall  be  no  such  thing  as 
politics  recognized,  but  where  equal  and  exact  justice  will  be 
meted  out  to  all  men. 

The  gentleman  from  Iowa1  proposed,  a  little  while  ago,  what 
was  entirely  proper,  that  the  provision  should  not  be  confined 
to  two  political  parties.  There  may  be  two,  three,  four,  or 
five  parties,  —  there  are  perhaps  that  many  in  the  country,  — 
and  if  you  let  the  idea  of  party  politics  get  into  the  law  of 
juries  at  all,  you  ought  to  go  through  the  whole  list  of  parties, 
to  be  just  or  fair. 

Let  me  ask  how  many  clerks  of  national  courts  there  are 
whose  politics  you  can  really  ascertain  without  an  inquest? 

1  Mr.  Weaver. 


694  CONGRESSIONAL  NULLIFICATION. 

Some  of  these  clerks  have  held  their  positions  during  the  lives 
of  half  a  dozen  political  parties,  and  have  no  political  partisan 
ship  in  them,  and  they  make  it  a  part  of  their  daily  bread  to 
keep  out  of  politics.  Some  of  them  were  in  office  before  the 
Republican  party  was  born,  and  do  not  know  to  which  party 
they  belong.  Now,  in  order  to  execute  this  proposed  law,  you 
must  find  out  what  their  political  opinions  are ;  you  must,  in 
fact,  make  them  partisan  before  you  can  appoint  a  commissioner 
or  impanel  a  jury. 

I  beg  gentlemen  to  let  this  amendment  of  mine  pass,  in  the 
interest  of  law  and  justice.  I  hope  that  the  fact  that  we  have 
been  looking  into  each  other's  faces  and  fighting  a  political 
battle  has  not  put  the  majority  into  such  an  attitude  that  they 
will  reject  everything  proposed  by  my  associates  or  by  myself. 
I  should  be  glad  for  the  sake  of  justice  to  see  the  House  agree 
to  this  amendment. 


IN  reply  to  Mr.  McMahon,  Mr.  Garfield  said  :  — 

MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —  The  gentleman  has  referred  to  the  Elec 
toral  Commission.  He  will  remember  that  there  was  not,  in  the 
Electoral  Commission  law,  a  word  which  referred  to  one  polit 
ical  party  or  the  other.  It  was  the  sense  of  decency  and  fair 
play  between  the  two  parties  which,  after  the  law  was  passed, 
led  them  voluntarily  to  put  men  of  both  parties  upon  that 
Commission.  The  Republican  Senate  put  upon  it  a  fair  share 
of  Democrats,  and  the  Democratic  House  put  upon  it  a  proper 
share  of  Republicans.  But  the  law  said  not  a  word  about 
selecting  men  from  opposite  political  parties  to  serve  upon  the 
Commission.  The  law  was  just  as  this  law  ought  to  be,  —  free 
from  the  recognition  of  party  politics. 


TROOPS    AT   THE    POLLS. 

REMARKS   MADE   IN  THE   HOUSE   OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 
JUNE  11,  1879. 


HOUSE  Bill  No.  i,  introduced  March  27,  in  opposition  to  which  the 
speeches  of  March  29  and  April  4  were  delivered,  passed  the  House  of 
Representatives  and  the  Senate,  but  was  vetoed  by  the  President,  April 
29.  A  few  days  later  the  two  houses  passed  the  following,  which  is  "  the 
short  bill  of  six  or  eight  lines  "  mentioned  by  Mr.  Garfield  below,  and 
which  was  also  vetoed  by  the  President :  — 

"  Whereas  the  presence  of  troops  at  the  polls  is  contrary  to  the  spirit 
of  our  institutions  and  the  traditions  of  our  people,  and  tends  to  destroy 
the  freedom  of  elections  :  Therefore,  — 

"  Be  it  enacted,  etc.,  That  it  shall  not  be  lawful  to  bring  to,  or  employ 
at,  any  place  where  a  general  or  special  election  is  being  held  in  a  State, 
any  part  of  the  army  or  navy  of  the  United  States,  unless  such  force  be 
necessary  to  repel  the  armed  enemies  of  the  United  States,  or  to  enforce 
Section  4,  Article  IV.  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  the 
laws  made  in  pursuance  thereof,  upon  the  application  of  the  legislature  or 
the  executive  of  the  State  where  such  force  is  to  be  used;  and  so  much 
of  all  laws  as  is  inconsistent  herewith  is  hereby  repealed." 

A  second  bill  was  now  brought  forward,  in  which  the  political  legisla 
tion  was  reduced  to  a  minimum,  as  follows  :  "  That  no  money  appropri 
ated  in' this  act  is  appropriated,  or  shall  be  paid,  for  the  subsistence,  equip 
ment,  transportation,  or  compensation  of  any  portion  of  the  army  of  the 
United  States  to  be  used  as  a  police  force  to  keep  the  peace  at  the  polls 
at  any  election  held  within  any  State."  A  large  majority  of  the  Republi 
can  members  of  both  houses,  not  deeming  this  provision  a  material  one, 
voted  for  the  bill.  Mr.  Garfield  led  the  way  in  the  remarks  following, 
at  the  close  of  which  he  calls  the  rider  "  only  a  stump  speech,  changing 
no  law  and  having  no  legal  effect  whatever."  The  bill  passed  the  two 
houses,  and  was  approved  by  the  President,  June  23,  1879. 

This  was  the  virtual  end  of  the  struggle  on  the  question  known  as 
"  Troops  at  the  Polls."  However,  the  following  section  was  added  to  the 


696  TROOPS  AT  THE  POLLS. 

\ 

Army  Bill  at  the  next  session  of  Congress  :  "  SEC.  2.  That  no  money  ap 
propriated  in  this  act  is  appropriated  or  shall  be  paid  for  the  subsistence, 
equipment,  transportation,  or  compensation  of  any  portion  of  the  army  of 
the  United  States,  to  be  used  as  a  police  force  to  keep  the  peace  at  the 
polls,  in  any  election  held  within  any  State.  Provided,  that  nothing  in 
this  provision  shall  be  construed  to  prevent  the  use  of  troops  to  protect 
against  domestic  violence  in  each  of  the  States  on  application  of  the  legis 
lature  thereof,  or  the  executive  when  the  legislature  cannot  be  convened." 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —  Permit  me  to  recount  very  briefly 
the  steps  which  have  been  taken  in  regard  to  this  Army 
Appropriation  Bill  in  connection  with  the  Legislative  Bill.  At 
the  close  of  the  last  session  those  two  bills  were  prevented  from 
passing,  upon  the  alleged  ground  that  there  were  three  griev 
ances  in  the  form  of  laws  which  gentlemen  on  the  other  side 
said  must  be  redressed  by  repeal  before  they  would  vote  the 
appropriations  necessary  to  carry  on  the  government.  One 
grievance  was  set  forth  in  a  general  charge,  vague  and  not 
well  founded,  that  there  was  a  law  upon  the  statute-book  that 
authorized  military  interference  with  elections.  The  second 
was  that  the  jurors'  test  oath,  made  necessary  by  the  war,  was 
now  a  hardship  and  a  grievance.  The  third  was  that  the  sev 
eral  sections  of  the  law  relating  to  supervisors  and  marshals 
at  national  elections  were  a  grievance  which  must  also  be  re 
moved.  And  we  were  told,  in  the  most  unequivocal  language, 
by  the  Democratic  leaders  in  both  houses,  that  the  $45,000,000 
needed  for  the  performance  of  the  functions  of  the  government 
covered  by  the  two  bills  should  never  be  appropriated  until 
these  statutes  were  repealed. 

In  response  to  these  demands  on  this  side  of  the  House,  we 
declared  our  willingness,  first,  to  pass  a  bill  which  the  S'enate, 
a  Republican  Senate,  sent  to  us,  repealing  that  section  of  the 
statute  which  prescribed  a  test  oath  for  jurors.  We  were  ready 
then,  we  are  ready  now,  to  pass  that  bill  just  as  the  Senate  sent 
it  to  us  at  the  last  session.  Secondly,  we  said  then,  what  we  say 
now,  that  we  have  never  voted  for  a  law  to  make  use  of  the  army 
to  run  elections.  We  have  said  repeatedly  that  there  never 
was  in  this  country,  and  there  is  not  now,  such  a  law;  that  we 
do  not  desire  such  a  law  or  such  a  practice;  and  that,  if  any 
law  be  needed  to  prevent  the  running  of  elections  by  bayonets, 


TROOPS  AT  THE  POLLS.  697 

we  are  ready  to  help  enact  it.  These  two  propositions  we 
offered  at  the  close  of  the  last  session,  in  order  to  remove 
any  real  or  apparent  ground  of  complaint  on  those  two  scores, 
provided  that  on  the  other  side  the  third  demand,  namely,  the 
repeal  of  the  laws  relating  to  supervisors  and  marshals,  should 
be  abandoned.  These  offers  were  rejected  with  arrogant  con 
tempt;  and  the  extra  session  was  forced  upon  the  country.  A 
struggle  of  nearly  three  months  has  followed,  at  the  end  of 
which  nearly  all  the  appropriations  have  passed  this  House 
without  conditions  or  change  of  the  laws.  After  this  general 
review,  I  shall  now  confine  my  remarks  wholly  to  the  history 
of  the  Army  Appropriation  Bill. 

Soon  after  this  session  began,  we  were  tendered  an  Army  Bill 
that  had  in  it,  not  a  repeal  of  the  law  of  1865,  alleged  to  be  an 
offence,  —  not  that,  for  we  tendered  that,  and  one  hundred  and 
nine  Republicans  voted  to  repeal  it,  and  not  one  Republican 
voted  against  the  repeal  while  every  Democrat  in  this  House 
voted  against  its  repeal,  —  not  a  repeal,  but  a  proposition  so 
to  modify  the  law  of  1865  as  to  extend  its  restrictions  beyond 
the  army  and  navy,  and  make  it  a  crime,  punishable  by  impris 
onment  or  fine,  for  any  civil  officer  of  the  United  States  to 
employ  any  armed  force,  soldiers  or  citizens,  to  keep  the  peace 
at  the  national  elections.  In  other  words,  we  were  tendered  a 
proposition  which  swept  the  whole  circle  of  the  civil  power  with 
its  prohibitions,  and  prevented  the  civil  authorities  of  the  nation 
from  preserving  the  peace  at  the  elections  of  Representatives, 
or  protecting  supervisors  in  the  execution  of  their  duties.  That 
assault  upon  the  law  we  resisted  as  one  man.  But  while  we 
resisted,  we  protested  that  we  were  not  and  never  had  been 
advocates  of  running  elections  by  bayonets.  Though  that  bill, 
with  its  revolutionary  menace,  passed  both  houses,  it  was 
wrecked  upon  the  rock  of  the  Constitution,  and  went  down, 
leaving  not  a  spar  afloat  on  the  face  of  the  political  waters.  It 
met  the  veto  with  which  the  Constitution  had  wisely  armed  our 
Chief  Magistrate. 

Then  came  the  second  chapter.  A  short  bill  of  six  or  eight 
lines  was  introduced,  not  merely  repealing  the  military  provis 
ions  of  the  law  of  1865,  but  in  effect  declaring  that  the  army 
of  the  United  States  should  not  be  used  to  enforce  any  of  the 
laws  of  the  Union  anywhere,  at  any  time  when  an  election  was 
being  held.  We  pointed  out  the  fact  that  this  bill  would  smite 


698  TROOPS  AT  THE  POLLS. 

with  paralysis  the  executive  authority  of  the  nation  during  two, 
three,  five,  ten,  or  possibly  a  hundred  days  of  every  year; 
that  under  its  provisions  even  the  property  of  the  nation  could 
not  be  protected  from  destruction  at  any  place  where  any  elec 
tion  was  being  held.  This  violent  measure  was  also  passed  by 
the  solid  Democratic  vote  of  both  houses;  but,  like  its  pre 
decessor,  it  ran  upon  the  rock  of  the  Constitution,  and  sank 
to  the  bottom,  and  only  bubbles  mark  the  spot  where  it  went 
down. 

And  now  we  have  before  us  a  third  bill  making  appropria 
tions  for  the  support  of  the  army.  Before  considering  its  other 
provisions,  I  turn  aside  to  congratulate  the  country  and  the 
army  that  so  many  gentlemen  on  both  sides  have  finally  con 
sented  to  strike  out  the  ninth  section,  which  would  have  proved 
a  hardship  to  the  meritorious  officers  of  the  army  by  stopping 
promotions  for  an  indefinite  period ;  and  I  tender  my  compli 
ments  and  thanks  to  the  distinguished  gentleman  from  Virginia1 
who  made  the  motion.  The  country  and  the  army  will  not  for 
get  it.  I  believe  the  appropriations  made  in  this  bill  are  suffi 
cient  for  the  support  of  our  military  establishment,  and  no  laws 
in  reference  to  which  there  is  any  controversy  are  repealed  by 
it.  This  brings  me  to  the  consideration  of  the  only  provision 
about  which  there  is  any  question.  It  is  the  sixth  section,  and 
I  will  read  it :  "  That  no  money  appropriated  in  this  act  is 
appropriated  or  shall  be  paid  for  the  subsistence,  equipment, 
transportation,  or  compensation  of  any  portion  of  the  army  of 
the  United  States  to  be  used  as  a  police  force  to  keep  the  peace 
at  the  polls  at  any  election  held  within  any  State." 

My  first  observation  is,  that  this  section  does  not  profess 
to  repeal,  and  does  not  repeal,  any  law  of  the  United  States. 
There  is  not  now,  and  so  far  as  I  know  there  never  was,  on  our 
statute-book  a  law  which  authorized  the  use  of  the  army  "  as  a 
police  force  "  at  the  polls ;  and  even  if  this  section  were  a  re 
pealing  clause,  there  is  nothing  on  which  it  can  operate  as  a 
repeal.  But  whatever  the  section  means,  it  is  in  the  form  of 
a  limitation  for  the  coming  year  upon  the  objects  to  which 
the  appropriations  are  to  be  applied.  It  is  declared  that  this 
money  is  not  "  appropriated  for  the  subsistence,  etc.  of  any 
portion  of  the  army  to  be  used  as  a  police  force  to  keep  the 
peace  at  the  polls."  I  affirm,  without  fear  of  successful  con- 

1  Mr.  Johnston. 


TROOPS  AT  THE  POLLS.  699 

tradiction,  that  this  limited  and  indirect  prohibition  does  not 
apply  to  any  law  or  to  any  practice  known  in  this  country. 

MR.  HAWLEY.     Not  since  the  Kansas  troubles. 

Certainly  not  since  the  Kansas  troubles.  And,  furthermore, 
I  do  not  know  of  a  man  in  this  House  who  is  in  favor  of  using 
the  army  of  the  United  States  as  an  ordinary  police  force  to 
run  elections.  There  are,  I  believe,  about  forty  thousand  poll 
ing-places  in  the  United  States.  If  our  army  roster  was  full  — 
officers,  soldiers,  and  camp  followers  —  we  should  not  have  over 
twenty-five  thousand  men  in  all.  And  if  there  were  a  law  for 
using  the  army  as  a  police  force  at  the  polls,  we  should  have 
about  three  fourths  of  one  soldier  to  each  polling-place.  Now, 
if  anybody  proposes  to  employ  our  army  in  that  way,  I  do  not 
know  where  the  lunatic  lives.  I  speak  for  myself,  and  of  course 
for  everybody  who  thinks  as  I  do,  and  for  nobody  else.  We 
hold  two  things.  First,  that  we  will  not,  if  we  can  help  it,  let 
vital  and  righteous  laws  be  repealed  or  nullified  as  the  condition 
of  getting  an  appropriation  to  support  the  government ;  we  have 
resisted,  and  will  resist  to  the  end,  all  such  measures.  And,  in 
the  second  place,  even  under  the  pressure  of  party  feeling  and 
party  opposition,  we  will  do  no  act,  and  cast  no  vote,  that  will 
place  us  really,  or  apparently,  in  any  attitude  inconsistent  with 
the  old  and  recognized  principles  and  traditions  of  English  and 
American  liberty;  namely,  that  civil,  not  military  force,  is  the 
usual,  the  safe,  the  American  method  of  keeping  peace  at  the 
polls. 

That  no  one  may  misunderstand  me,  let  me  put  the  case  thus. 
Suppose  some  one  should  offer  the  following  as  a  substitute  for 
this  section:  "Be  it  enacted,  etc.,  That  it  shall  be  lawful  for  the 
President  of  the  United  States  to  use  the  army,  or  any  portion 
of  it,  as  a  police  force  to  keep  the  peace  at  the  polls  at  any 
election  held  within  any  State."  Is  there  a  man  in  this  house 
that  would  vote  to  make  that  a  part  of  our  law?  If  there  be 
one,  let  him  speak.  [A  pause.]  Now,  if  no  one  would  vote 
to  enact  into  law  the  thing  for  which  this  section  says  no  money 
is  appropriated,  how  can  any  one  hold  that  the  section  prohibits 
anything  that  ought  to  be  done?  I  say,  for  one,  that  in  so  far 
as  this  section  indicates  the  relation  between  the  civil  and  mili 
tary  arms  of  the  government  in  the  conduct  of  elections,  it  meets 
my  cordial  concurrence ;  and  a  vote  for  the  section  will  put  at 


700  TROOPS  AT  THE  POLLS. 

rest  the  reckless  and  false  charge  that  this  side  of  the  house 
desires  to  run  elections  by  bayonets.  I  admit,  as  my  friend 
from  Indiana1  has  said,  that  the  section  is  mere  surplusage.  It 
does  not  repeal  or  change  any  existing  law ;  but  if  its  framers 
expect,  by  offering  it,  to  gain  a  party  advantage  by  getting  me, 
or  those  with  whom  I  act,  to  cast  a  vote  that  implies  that  the 
army  ought  to  be  used  as  an  ordinary  police  at  elections,  they 
are  greatly  mistaken,  for  they  have  set  a  very  open  trap,  baited 
with  a  very  small  piece  of  very  poor  cheese. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  a  word  further  in  reference  to  the  lan 
guage  of  the  section.  Some  gentlemen  may  be  troubled  about 
the  scope  and  meaning  of  the  words  "  to  be  used  as  a  police 
force."  Let  me  recall  a  little  history.  When  flagrant  war  was 
raging,  when  eleven  States  were  banded  against  the  Union  to 
destroy  it,  and  the  theatre  of  war  covered  five  or  six  States 
that  adhered  to  the  Union,  there  was  in  fact  military  interfer 
ence  at  the  elections;  it  was  the  military  interference  of  the 
armed  enemies  of  the  United  States.  I  once  voted  at  an  elec 
tion  where  there  was  very  serious  military  interference.  In  the 
autumn  of  1862,  under  the  heights  of  Missionary  Ridge,  near 
the  city  of  Chattanooga,  where  five  thousand  Ohio  soldiers  un 
der  the  laws  of  that  State  were  permitted  to  vote,  in  company 
with  my  comrades  I  voted  for  a  Governor  of  Ohio.  While  we 
were  voting,  the  shells  from  the  batteries  of  armed  enemies  of 
the  United  States  were  bursting  over  our  heads,  and  some  of 
our  voters  were  killed  while  in  the  exercise  of  the  right  of  suf 
frage  as  citizens  of  Ohio.  That  was  the  only  military  interfer 
ence  with  elections  that  I  ever  witnessed.  It  was  to  prevent 
that  kind  of  military  interference  that  our  armies  in  time  of  war 
kept  off  the  armed  enemies  of  the  United  States  in  the  State 
of  Kentucky,  and  in  other  border  States,  while  elections  were 
being  held  there.  And  in  order  that  they  might  not,  in  the 
performance  of  that  necessary  duty,  interfere  with  the  freedom 
of  elections  and  the  right  of  citizens,  the  act  of  February  25, 
1 865,  was  passed,  while  our  guns  were  yet  smoking  and  while 
we  were  yet  in  line  of  battle.  Even  in  that  act  it  was  pro 
vided,  under  the  severe  penalties  of  criminal  law,  that  no  offi 
cer,  civil,  military,  or  naval,  should  interfere  with  the  right  of 
any  man  to  vote,  or  should  undertake  to  prescribe  qualifica 
tions  for  a  voter. 

1  Mr.  Baker. 


TROOPS  AT  THE  POLLS.  701 

Now,  I  say  that  the  act  of  1865  was  in  the  interest  of  civil 
liberty,  restraining  our  armies  from  doing  any  wrong,  or  com 
mitting  any  outrage.  In  that  act  there  occurs,  for  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  our  legislation  connected  with  the  army,  the 
expression  "  to  keep  the  peace  at  the  polls."  And  even  there  it 
is  used  for  the  purpose  of  saying  that  the  law  does  not  make  it 
a  crime  punishable  by  imprisonment  and  fine  for  an  officer  of  the 
government  to  keep  the  peace  at  the  polls,  or  to  repel  the  armed 
enemies  of  the  United  States.  Nothing  in  that  law  refers  to 
the  use  of  the  army  as  an  ordinary  police  force.  The  marshals 
and  their  deputies  are  the  police  force  of  the  United  States. 
Our  army  is  governed  by  the  Rules  and  Articles  of  War,  and 
is  always  used  as  an  army  when  it  is  ordered  to  execute  the 
laws.  The  proposition  to  use  our  army  as  a  police,  to  force 
the  soldiers  out  and  station  them  one  by  one  at  the  polls  to  run 
the  elections  as  a  police,  is  a  fiction  so  absurd  that  I  trust  no 
man  on  this  side  of  the  House  will  give  the  least  color  to  the 
assumption  that  he  favors  it  by  holding  that  this  sixth  section 
repeals,  suspends,  or  modifies  any  existing  statute. 

MR.  WILLIAMS.  Are  you  now  in  favor  of  using  any  portion  of  the 
army  of  the  United  States  at  any  time,  under  any  circumstances,  in  any 
emergency,  to  keep  the  peace  at  the  polls  ? 

Not  in  the  sense  of  using  that  army  as  an  ordinary  police 
force. 

MR.  WILLIAMS.     In  any  form  or  manner? 

MR.  CARLISLE.  This  section  does  not  refer  to  the  use  of  the  army  as 
an  ordinary  police  force.  I  do  not  mean  as  an  ordinary  civil  police,  but 
in  any  form  whatever.  Is  the  gentleman  in  favor  of  using  the  army  in 
any  form  whatever  to  keep  the  peace  at  the  polls  ? 

I  am  in  favor  of  using  the  army  and  the  navy,  and  all  thei 
militia  of  the  United  States,  to  enforce  the  laws  of  the  United 
States,  any  one  of  them,  and  all  of  them,  everywhere,  and  at  all 
times,  when  the  civil  force  is  inadequate,  but  not  until  then. 

MR.  WILLIAMS.     Including  the  keeping  of  the  peace  at  the  polls  ? 

If  there  be  any  law  that  authorizes  the  President  to  use  the 
army  as  an  ordinary  police  force  for  that  purpose,  I  am  in  favor 
of  enforcing  it. 

MR.  WILLIAMS.  Does  my  friend  think  that  we  have  that  law,  or  dpes 
he  think  that  we  do  not  have  it  ? 


702  TROOPS  AT  THE  POLLS. 

I  think  we  have  not,  that  we  never  have  had  it,  and  that  we 
never  ought  to  have  it;  the  marshals  and  their  deputies  are  our 
police.  Under  our  laws  at  the  present  moment,  we  have  the 
amplest  power  to  add  deputy  marshals  and  assistant  marshals  in 
any  number  that  may  be  needed  to  keep  the  peace  at  the  polls, 
and  those  marshals  may  summon  the  posse,  the  armed  posse  of 
all  faithful  citizens  who  will  obey  the  orders  of  the  marshals,  for 
this  purpose.  This  is  the  traditional  law  of  the  English-speaking 
people. 

Now,  if  my  friend  from  Wisconsin l  will  remember,  it  was  dis 
tinctly  provided  in  the  law  of  last  year  that  the  army  of  the 
United  States  should  not  be  used  as  a  part  of  the  posse  comitatus 
in  any  case,  except  where  the  law  expressly  provided  that  it 
should  be  so  used.  Therefore,  in  the  presence  of  that  restrictive 
legislation,  passed  almost  unanimously  by  a  Republican  Senate, 
—  although  my  friend  and  I  voted  against  it  in  the  House,  yet 
it  was  finally  concurred  in  without  a  division,  —  in  the  presence 
of  that  restrictive  legislation,  I  say  there  is  no  law  in  the  United 
States  to  which  this  sixth  section  can  attach  itself,  either  as  a 
repealing  or  as  a  modifying  clause.  Therefore  I  say,  in  conclu 
sion,  that  whatever  use  may  be  made  of  this  section  as  party 
literature,  it  is  evident  to  rne  that,  in  the  judgment  of  the  law 
yers,  courts,  and  executive  officers  of  the  government,  it  will  be 
regarded  merely  and  only  a  stump  speech,  changing  no  law  and 
having  no  legal  effect  whatever. 

1  Mr.  Williams. 


CONGRESSIONAL    NULLIFICATION, 

REMARKS  MADE  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 
JUNE  19,  1879. 


THE  "  Certain  Judicial  Expenses  Bill,"  mentioned  in  the  introductory 
note  to  the  remarks  of  June  10,  passed  the  House  on  that  day.  On  the 
1 6th  of  June  the  Senate  made  amendments  in  which  the  House  did  not 
concur,  and  the  subject  went  to  a  committee  of  conference.  Upon  the 
report  of  this  committee  Mr.  Garfield  made  the  following  remarks.  The 
bill  as  finally  amended  passed  the  House,  but  was  vetoed  by  the  Presi 
dent,  June  23.  A  bill  was  now  passed  called  the  "Jurors  Bill,"  and  was 
approved  June  30,  1879.  Section  2  contained  the  following  provisions 
concerning  jurors  :  "  That  the  per  diem  pay  of  each  juror,  grand  or  petit, 
in  any  court  of  the  United  States,  shall  be  two  dollars  ;  and  that  the  last 
clause  of  Section  800  of  the  Revised  Statutes  of  the  United  States,  which 
refers  to  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Sections  801,  820,  and  821  of  the 
Revised  Statutes  of  the  United  States,  are  hereby  repealed ;  and  that  all 
such  jurors,  grand  and  petit,  including  those  summoned  during  the  ses 
sion  of  the  court,  shall  be  publicly  drawn  from  a  box  containing,  at  the 
time  of  such  drawing,  the  names  of  not  less  than  three  hundred  persons, 
possessing  the  qualifications  prescribed  in  Section  800  of  the  Revised 
Statutes,  which  names  shall  have  been  placed  therein  by  the  clerk  of  such 
court,  and  a  commissioner,  to  be  appointed  by  the  judge  thereof,  which 
commissioner  shall  be  a  citizen  of  good  standing,  residing  in  the  district 
in  which  such  court  is  held,  and  a  well-known  member  of  the  principal 
political  party,  in  the  district  in  which  the  court  is  held,  opposing  that  to 
which  the  clerk  may  belong,  the  clerk  and  said  commissioner  each  to  place 
one  name  in  said  box  alternately,  without  reference  to  party  affiliations, 
until  the  whole  number  required  shall  be  placed  therein.  But  nothing 
herein  contained  shall  be  construed  to  prevent  any  judge  from  ordering 
the  names  of  jurors  to  be  drawn  from  the  boxes  used  by  the  State  au 
thorities  in  selecting  jurors  in  the  highest  courts  of  the  State ;  and  no 
pers.cn  shall  serve  as  a  petit  juror  more  than  one  term  in  any  one  year, 
and  all  juries  to  serve  in  courts  after  the  passage  of  this  act  shall  be  drawn 


704 


CONGRESSIONAL   NULLIFICATION. 


in  conformity  herewith.  Provided,  that  no  citizen  possessing  all  other 
qualifications  which  are  or  may  be  prescribed  by  law,  shall  be  disquali 
fied  for  service  as  a  grand  or  petit  juror  in  any  court  of  the  United 
States  on  account  of  race,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude." 


MR.  SPEAKER,— We  do  not  insist  that  this  House  is 
obliged  to  vote  all  the  money  which  some  of  us  may 
think  necessary  for  any  given  purpose.  If  the  majority  offer  to 
appropriate  for  a  .particular  purpose  a  part  only  of  the  money 
needed,  we  should  not  be  justified  in  voting  against  the  bill 
merely  because  the  amount  is  insufficient,  for  it  might  be  your 
purpose  to  supply  the  deficiency  hereafter.  But  it  is  certainly 
an  objectionable  mode  of  legislation  so  to  cut  down  the  appro 
priation  bills  as  to  make  a  deficiency  inevitable.  This  bill  is 
open  to  that  objection ;  it  does  not  appropriate  enough ;  for  it 
wholly  omits  a  part  of  the  usual  supplies.  But  that  objection 
alone  would  not  prevent  this  side  from  voting  for  it. 

The  feature  of  the  bill  which  is  most  objectionable,  and  to 
which  we  do  not  and  cannot  agree,  has  been  well  stated  by  my 
colleague.1  The  bill  goes  beyond  appropriations,  and  proposes 
by  law  to  lay  hold  of  the  executive  department  of  this  govern 
ment,  and  affirmatively  prevent  its  officers  from  enforcing  cer 
tain  of  the  laws  of  the  land.  That  is  the  attempt  which  we 
resist  and  shall  continue  to  resist.  The  objectionable  provision 
is  now  made  definite  and  unmistakable  in  this  conference  report. 
The  language  of  the  clause  as  it  first  passed  the  House  was 
somewhat  vague ;  but  here  it  is  plain,  and  we  perfectly  under 
stand  its  import.  If  any  doubt  remained,  my  colleague  who 
presented  the  report 2  removed  it,  by  declaring  the  purpose  of 
the  clause.  The  issue  is  narrowed  down  to  this.  The  gentle 
man  tells  us  that  he  and  his  associates  are  determined  that  no 
marshals,  deputy  marshals,  or  assistant  marshals  shall  be  ap 
pointed  to  execute  the  laws  of  the  Union,  as  required  in  Title  26 
of  the  Revised  Statutes ;  that  they  have  devised  and  agreed  on 
this  clause  in  the  conference  between  the  two  houses,  so  as  to 
prevent  the  enforcement  of  that  part  of  the  existing  law.  This 
makes  a  sharp  issue  which  everybody  can  understand. 

Now,  assuming  that  the  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  do  not 
1  Mr.  Monroe.  2  Mr.  McMahon. 


CONGRESSIONAL  NULLIFICATION. 


705 


like  these  provisions  of  law  relating  to  elections,  (and  we  under 
stand  that  to  be  their  unanimous  sentiment,)  they  ought  to 
propose  amendments  to  them.  My  colleague  who  presents  this 
report  says  that  the  law  has  been  used  for  partisan  purposes ; 
that  marshals,  deputy  marshals,  and  assistant  marshals  have 
been  appointed  merely  to  advocate  and  advance  the  political 
interest  of  one  party  at  the  elections.  If  that  be  so,  it  is  a  just 
criticism  of  the  law,  and  an  amendment  ought  to  be  offered  to 
correct  such  an  abuse.  If  my  colleague  will  offer  an  amend 
ment,  or  allow  us  to  offer  an  amendment,  so  as  to  put  the 
appointment  of  deputy  and  assistant  marshals  who  are  to  serve 
in  connection  with  Congressional  elections  on  the  same  basis  as 
the  appointment  of  supervisors,  —  that  is,  that  they  shall  be 
appointed  by  the  courts,  and  shall  be  chosen  in  equal  numbers 
from  the  different  political  parties, — we  will  aid  him,  and  the 
abuse  of  which  he  complains  can  be  corrected.  But  that  is  not 
in  the  line  of  the  gentleman's  purpose,  nor  that  of  his  party. 
They  do  not  wish  to  better  the  law,  but  to  annul  it.  They  do 
not  wish  the  law  executed,  so  long  as  they  have  not  the  power 
to  make  the  appointments  and  execute  it  in  their  own  way. 

Recent  events  have  shown  them  that  they  cannot  repeal  these 
statutes.  In  the  present  situation  of  parties  and  opinions  in 
Congress  it  is  impossible  to  repeal  them.  Those  who  wish  to  re 
peal  them  have  not  the  constitutional  majority  to  do  so.  They 
can  no  more  remove  them  from  the  statute-book  than  they  can 
enact  a  law  without  a  majority  of  votes.  In  short,  they  have 
not  the  constitutional  majority  to  repeal  these  laws.  Not  being 
able  constitutionally  to  repeal  them,  gentlemen  on  the  other 
side  say,  "We  will  prevent  their  enforcement."  And,  in  at 
tempting  this,  they  attack  the  government  in  a  very  vital  part 
They  know  that  the  whole  country,  without  regard  to  party, 
needs  to  have  the  courts  of  the  United  States  open  to  all 
suitors.  They  know  that  justice  ought  to  be  administered  in 
every  District  and  Circuit  Court  of  the  United  States.  They 
know  that  United  States  prisoners  are  locked  up,  some  under 
sentence  of  our  courts,  others  awaiting  trial ;  and  that  the  Con 
stitution  provides  that  all  who  are  held  under  charges  shall  have 
a  speedy  trial.  The  great  duty,  the  imperative  obligation,  to 
provide  for  the  speedy  and  prompt  administration  of  justice, 
rests  upon  members  of  Congress,  Republicans  and  Democrats 

alike.     But  the  majority  of  this  House  have  segregated  from  all 
VOL.  ii.  45 


706  CONGRESSIONAL  NULLIFICATION. 

the  other  appropriations  of  the  year  this  one  for  the  judicial 
expenses  of  the  government,  and  now  offer  an  appropriation  of 
two  and  a  half  millions  of  dollars,  and  say, — not  to  us  alone,  but 
through  us  to  the  nation  and  to  all  the  officers  of  the  nation, — 
that  this  money  of  the  people,  which  has  been  paid  into  the 
national  treasury  for  the  very  purpose  of  maintaining  the  courts, 
shall  not  be  used  for  that  purpose,  save  on  condition  that  the 
Democratic  party  shall  be  permitted  to  couple  with  it  a  provis 
ion  that  certain  laws  of  the  land  which  they  cannot  repeal  shall 
not  be  enforced;  nay,  more,  that  for  the  coming  year  these 
laws  shall  be  nullified.  In  short,  we  are  told  that  we  must  sub 
mit  to  the  nullification  of  the  election  laws,  or  the  courts  of  the 
United  States  shall  be  closed,  the  prisoners  awaiting  trial  shall 
be  discharged  or  shall  be  held  untried,  contrary  to  the  constitu 
tional  provision  in  their  behalf,  and  that  no  provision  shall  be 
made  even  to  feed  them.  It  is  to  be  made  unlawful  to  try  them, 
unlawful  to  keep  them,  and  it  is  unlawful  to  discharge  them. 
With  these  hard  conditions  you  have  fettered  the  appropria 
tions,  the  use  of  which  reaches  to  the  very  vitals  of  national 
justice.  You  say,  "  Take  these  appropriations  coupled  with 
the  nullification  of  certain  laws,  or  you  shall  not  have  them 
at  all." 

Gentlemen,  we  earnestly  desire  to  go  home.  We  have  borne 
the  burden  of  this  long,  weary,  and  profitless  session,  until  we 
are  anxious  to  go  to  our  homes  to  rest  and  give  the  country 
rest.  But  we  cannot,  even  under  the  persuasive  heat  of  the 
dog-star  and  the  pressure  of  this  weary  and  distasteful  work, 
accept  the  dishonor  which  this  bill  offers.  It  is  a  moral  bribe 
to  us  to  consent  to  the  nullification  of  laws  which  you  seek,  not 
to  improve,  but  to  destroy.  We  cannot,  we  will  not,  consent. 

You  have  retained  in  this  bill  a  clause  which,  if  it  becomes 
a  law,  will  place  the  President  of  the  United  States  between 
two  fires,  —  the  fire  of  this  law  if  he  disobeys  it,  and  the  fire  of 
Heaven  if  he  violates  his  oath  by  obeying  it. 

MR.  McMAHON.  Will  my  colleague  allow  me  to  ask  him  how  the 
President  is  at  all  interfered  with? 

I  will  answer.  The  President  has  taken  an  oath  that  he  will 
see  to  it  that  the  laws  be  faithfully  executed.  You  do  not 
repeal  the  election  laws,  but  you  make  it  impossible  for  him 
to  execute  them  without  violating  another.  You  seek  to  place 


CONGRESSIONAL    NULLIFICATION.  707 

him  in  reach  of  your  impeachment  on  the  one  hand,  or,  on  the 
other,  to  compel  him  to  neglect  his  duty  and  violate  his  oath. 
We  have  no  legal  or  moral  right  to  put  the  Chief  Executive 
in  such  an  attitude.  The  wisdom  of  the  Old  Testament  prov 
erb,  "  In  vain  is  the  net  spread  in  the  sight  of  any  bird,"  may 
be  fitly  applied  in  this  case.  I  do  not  see  that  there  is  the 
slightest  probability  that  you  can  catch  a  bird  in  this  net. 

MR.  HOUSE.  Do  I  understand  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  as  threatening 
us  with  another  veto  ? 

Mr.  Speaker,  we  have  heard  of  war  and  rumors  of  war  in 
another  quarter;  but  this  House,  this  body,  whose  members 
come  directly  from  the  people,  —  the  only  real  sovereigns  in  this 
country,  —  have  not  only  not  come  to  blows,  but,  so  far  as  I 
know,  have  not  come  to  threats. 

MR.  HOUSE.    The  gentleman  talks  about  blows. 

I  say,  neither  blows  nor  threats.  I  am  certainly  indulging  in 
no  threats.  I  only  say  you  offer  a  bill  for  the  approval  of  the 
Executive  which,  if  he  approves  it,  puts  him  in  a  position  where 
he  will  be  involved  in  a  conflict  between  the  Constitution  and 
the  law  you  make. 

MR.  HOUSE.    What  a  very  frank  answer. 

It  is  both  frank  and  just.  I  appeal  to  you,  gentlemen, 
whether  this  kind  of  legislation  meets  the  approval  of  your  best 
judgment.  Now,  I  had  some  hope,  when  we  were  told  yester 
day  by  my  colleague l  that  the  amendment  which  had  come 
from  the  Senate  was  left  open  so  as  to  enable  the  conference 
committee  to  soften  the  asperities  of  this  bill,  —  I  had  some 
hope  that  we  should  see  our  way  through  the  entanglement 
by  finding  a  bill  which  gentlemen  on  this  side  could  support, 
and  that  we  might  then  adjourn,  shake  hands,  and  go  home. 
But  I  am  compelled  for  the  present  to  bid  farewell  to  that 
pleasing  prospect.  WE  STAY! 

1  Mr.  McMahon. 


THE  REVIVED  DOCTRINE  OF  STATE 
SOVEREIGNTY. 

SPEECH    DELIVERED    IN    THE    HOUSE    OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 

JUNE  27,  1879. 


THE  "Jurors  Bill,"  approved  June  30,  made  no  provision  for  paying 
the  United  States  marshals  and  their  deputies  for  the  fiscal  year  closing 
June  30,  1880.  In  the  mean  time  a  "  United  States  Marshals  Bill  "  had 
been  brought  forward  making  appropriations  for  the  marshals  and  their 
general  deputies.  The  appropriations,  however,  were  accompanied  by 
limitations  that  made  the  enforcement  of  the  election  laws  impossible. 
The  bill  was  passed  by  the  houses,  but  was  vetoed  by  President  Hayes, 
June  30.  This  was  the  end  of  the  struggle  for  that  session.  Congress 
adjourned  on  July  ist.  Still  there  was  no  appropriation  for  the  fees  of 
marshals.  Pending  the  "  Marshals  Bill,"  Mr.  Garfield  made  this  speech, 
"The  Revived  Doctrine  of  State  Sovereignty." 

This  was  the  end,  for  the  session,  of  the  long  and  hard-fought  battle  on 
the  election  laws,  —  a  battle  brought  on  by  an  attempt  to  make  numer 
ous  and  important  changes  in  the  national  laws  by  putting  "  riders  "  on 
appropriation  bills.  A  brief  survey  of  the  field  on  the  adjournment  of 
Congress  will  not  be  out  of  place. 

The  army  appropriation  had  been  made  accompanied  by  a  mild  polit 
ical  provision.  The  Legislative,  Executive,  and  Judicial  Bill  contained 
no  political  legislation  whatever.  The  "Jurors  Bill"  contained  features 
deemed  objectionable  by  the  Republican  Senators  and  Representatives, 
though  promptly  signed  by  President  Hayes.  The  "  Marshals  Bill  " 
failed  altogether,  and  no  provision  whatever  was  made  for  the  payment 
of  the  marshals'  fees  for  the  ensuing  fiscal  year.  Of  the  $45,000,000 
needed  by  the  army,  and  for  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial  expenses, 
contained  in  the  two  bills  that  failed  to  pass  at  the  last  session  of  the 
Forty-fifth  Congress,  all  but  $600,000  had  been  voted.  It  should  be 
added,  that  the  failure  to  appropriate  money  for  the  marshals  in  no  way 


STATE  SOVEREIGNTY.  709 

interfered  with  civil  cases  between  private  parties  :  no  provision  was  made 
for  paying  them  for  business  done  for  the  government. 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,  — "To  this  favor"  it  has  come  at  last. 
The  great  fleet  that  set  out  on  the  iSth  of  March,  with 
all  its  freightage  and  armament,  is  so  shattered  that  now  all  the 
valuables  it  carried  are  embarked  in  this  little  craft,  to  meet 
whatever  fate  the  sea  and  the  storm  may  offer.  This  little  bill 
contains  the  residuum  of  almost  everything  that  has  been  the 
subject  of  controversy  at  the  present  session.  I  will  not  discuss 
it  in  detail,  but  will  speak  only  of  its  central  feature,  and  espe 
cially  of  the  opinions  which  the  discussion  of  that  feature  has 
brought  to  the  surface  during  the  session. 

The  majority  in  this  Congress  have  adopted  what  I  consider 
very  extreme  and  dangerous  opinions  on  certain  important 
constitutional  questions.  They  have  not  only  drifted  back  to 
their  old  attitude  on  the  subject  of  State  sovereignty,  but  they 
have  pushed  that  doctrine  much  further  than  most  of  their 
predecessors  ever  went  before,  except  during  the  period  imme 
diately  preceding  the  late  war.  So  extreme  are  some  of  these 
utterances,  that  nothing  short  of  actual  quotations  from  the 
Record  will  do  their  authors  justice.  I  shall  therefore  read 
several  extracts  from  the  debates  at  the  present  session  of 
Congress,  and  group  them  in  the  order  of  the  topics  dis 
cussed. 

Senator  Wallace  of  Pennsylvania :  "  The  Federal  government 
has  no  voters ;  it  can  make  none,  it  can  constitutionally  con 
trol  none.  .  .  .  When  it  asserts  the  power  to  create  and  hold 
national  elections,  or  to  regulate  the  conduct  of  the  voter  on 
election  day,  or  to  maintain  equal  suffrage,  it  tramples  under 
foot  the  very  basis  of  the  Federal  system,  and  seeks  to  build  a 
consolidated  government  from  a  democratic  republic.  This  is 
the  plain  purpose  of  the  men  now  in  control  of  the  Federal 
government,  and  to  this  end  the  teachings  of  leading  Repub 
licans  are  now  shaped If  there  be  such  a  thing,  then,  as 

a  "  national  election,"  it  wants  the  first  element  of  an  election, — 
a  national  voter.  The  Federal  government,  or  (if  it  suits  our 
friends  on  the  other  side  better)  the  nation  has  no  voters ;  it 
cannot  create  them,  it  cannot  qualify  them There  are  no 


7IO  STATE   SOVEREIGNTY. 

national  voters..  Voters  who  vote  for  national  representatives 
are  qualified  by  State  constitutions  and  State  laws,  and  national 
citizenship  is  not  required  of  a  voter  of  the  State  by  any  pro 
vision  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  nor  in  practice."  l 

Representative  Clark  of  Missouri :  "  The  United  States  has 
no  voters."2 

Senator  Maxey  of  Texas :  "  It  follows  ....  as  surely  as 
'  grass  grows  and  water  runs/  that  under  our  Constitution 
the  entire  control  of  elections  must  be  under  the  States  whose 
voters  assemble;  whose  right  to  vote  is  not  drawn  from  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  but  existed  and  was  freely 
exercised  long  before  its  adoption."  3 

Senator  Williams  of  Kentucky:  "The  legislatures  of  the 
States  and  the  people  of  the  several  districts  are  the  con 
stituency  of  Senators  and  Representatives  in  Congress.  They 
receive  their  commissions  from  the  Governor,  and  when  they 
resign  (which  is  very  seldom)  they  send  their  resignations  to 
the  Governor,  and  not  to  the  President.  They  are  State  officers, 
and  not  Federal  officers."4 

Senator  Whyte  of  Maryland :  "  There  are  no  elections  of 
United  State  officers  and  no  voters  of  the  United  States.  The 
voters  are  voters  of  the  States,  they  are  the  people  of  the  States, 
and  their  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives  are  chosen 
by  the  electors  of  the  States  to  represent  the  people  of  the 
States,  whose  agents  they  are."  5 

Mr.  McLane  of  Maryland:  "Do  I  understand  him6  to  say 
that  the  government  of  the  United  States  has  the  right  to  keep 
the  peace  anywhere  within  a  State?  Do  I  understand  him  to 
say  that  there  is  any  '  peace  of  the  United  States '  at  all  recog 
nized  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States?"  7 

Mr.  McLane  :  "  I  believe  that  the  provision  of  law  which  we 
are  about  to  repeal  is  unconstitutional ;  that  is  to  say,  that  it  is 
unconstitutional  for  the  United  States  to  'keep  the  peace'  any 
where  in  the  States,  either  at  the  polls  or  elsewhere ;  and  if 
it  were  constitutional,  I  believe,  in  common  with  gentlemen  on 
this  side  of  the  house,  that  it  would  be  highly  inexpedient  to 

1  Congressional  Record,  May  29,  1879,  PP-  1685-1687. 

2  Ibid.,  April  24,  p.  857.  3  ibid.,  April  21,  p.  601. 
*  Ibid.,  April  23,  p.  723.                                       5  ibid.,  May  20,  p.  1468. 

6  To  Mr.  Robeson,  who  answered,  "  Certainly  I  do." 

7  Congressional  Record,  April  3,  1879,  P-  198- 


STATE   SOVEREIGNTY. 


711 


exercise  that  power When  that  law  used  the  phrase  '  to 

keep  the  peace,'  it  could  only  mean  the  peace  of  the  States. 
....  It  is  not  a  possible  thing  to  have  a  breach  of  the  United 
States  peace  at  the  polls."  1 

Senator  Whyte :  "  Sovereignty  is  lodged  with  the  States, 
where  it  had  its  home  long  before  the  Constitution  was  created. 
The  Constitution  is  the  creature  of  that  sovereignty.  The  Fed 
eral  government  has  no  inherent  sovereignty.  All  its  sover 
eign  powers  are  drawn  from  the  States."  2 

Senator  Wallace :  "  Thus  we  have  every  branch  of  the  Fed 
eral  government,  House,  Senate,  the  executive  and  judiciary 
departments,  standing  upon  the  State  governments,  •  and  all 
resting  finally  upon  the  people  of  the  States,  qualified  as  voters 
by  State  constitutions  and  State  laws."  3 

Senator  Whyte :    "No,  Mr.  President;  it  never  was  declared 

that  we  were  a  nation In  the  formation  and  adoption  of 

the  Constitution  the  States  were  the  factors."  4 
.  These  are  the  declarations  of  six  distinguished  members  of 
the  present  Congress.    The  doctrines  set  forth  in  the  above  quo 
tations  may  be  fairly  regarded  as  the  doctrines  of  the  Democ 
racy  as  represented  in  this  Capitol.     Let  me  summarize  them. 

First,  there  are  no  national  elections;  second,  the  United 
States  has  no  voters;  third,  the  States  have  the  exclusive  right 
to  control  all  elections  of  members  of  Congress ;  fourth,  the 
Senators  and  Representatives  in  Congress  are  State  officers,  or, 
as  they  have  been  called  during  the  present  session,  "  ambas 
sadors  "  or  "  agents  "  of  the  State ;  fifth,  the  United  States  has 
no  authority  to  keep  the  peace  anywhere  within  a  State,  and, 
in  fact,  has  no  peace  to  keep ;  sixth,  the  United  States  is  not 
a  nation  endowed  with  sovereign  power,  but  is  a  confederacy 
of  States;  seventh,  the  States  are  sovereignties  possessing  in 
herent  supreme  powers ;  they  are  older  than  the  Union,  and  as 
independent  sovereignties  the  State  governments  created  the 
Union  and  determined  and  limited  the  powers  of  the  general 
government. 

These  declarations  embody  the  sum  total  of  the  constitutional 
doctrines  which  the  Democracy  has  avowed  during  this  extra 
session  of  Congress.  They  form  a  body  of  doctrines  which  I 
do  not  hesitate  to  say  are  more  extreme  than  was  ever  before 

1  Congressional  Record,  April  5,  1879,  PP-  257»  25&-          2  Ibid.,  May  20,  p.  1472. 
3  Ibid.,  May  29,  p.  1686.  *  Ibid.,  May  20,  pp.  1468,  1469. 


7I2  STATE  SOVEREIGNTY. 

held  on  this  subject,  except  perhaps  at  the  very  crisis  of  seces 
sion  and  rebellion.  And  they  have  not  been  put  forth  as 
abstract  theories  of  government.  True  to  the  logic  of  their  con 
victions,  the  majority  have  sought  to  put  them  in  practice  by 
affirmative  acts  of  legislation.  Let  me  enumerate  these  at 
tempts.  • 

First,  they  have  denounced  as  unconstitutional  all  attempts  of 
the  United  States  to  supervise,  regulate,  or  protect  national 
elections,  and  have  tried  to  repeal  all  laws  on  the  national 
statute-book  enacted  for  that  purpose.  Secondly,  following 
the  advice  given  by  Calhoun  in  his  political  testament  to  his 
followers,  they  have  tried  to  repeal  all  those  portions  of  the 
venerated  Judiciary  Act  of  1789,  the  act  of  1833  against  nullifi 
cation,  the  act  of  1861,  and  the  acts  amendatory  thereof,  which 
provide  for  carrying  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
all  controversies  that  relate  to  the  duties  and  authority  of  any 
officer  acting  under  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United 
States.  Thirdly,  they  have  attempted  to  prevent  the  President 
from  enforcing  the  laws  of  the  Union,  by  refusing  necessary 
supplies  and  by  forbidding  the  use  of  the  army  to  suppress 
violent  resistance  to  the  laws  by  which,  if  they  had  succeeded, 
they  would  have  left  the  citizens  and  the  authorities  of  the 
States  free  to  obey  or  disobey  the  laws  of  the  Union,  as  they 
might  choose. 

These,  I  believe,  Mr.  Chairman,  are  fair  summaries  both  of 
the  principles  and  of  the  attempted  practice  to  which  the  major 
ity  of  this  House  have  treated  the  country  during  the  extra 
session. 

Before  quitting  this  topic,  it  is  worth  while  to  notice  the  fact 
that  the  attempt  made  in  one  of  the  bills  now  pending  in  this 
House,  to  curtail  the  jurisdiction  of  the  national  courts,  is  in 
the  direct  line  of  the  teachings  of  John  C.  Calhoun.  In  his 
"  Discourse  on  the  Constitution  and  Government  of  the  United 
States,"  published  by  authority  of  the  legislature  of  South  Caro 
lina  in  1851,  he  sets  forth  at  great  length  the  doctrine  that  ours 
is  not  a  national  government,  but  a  confederacy  of  sovereign 
States,  and  then  proceeds  to  point  out  what  he  considers  the 
dangerous  departures  which  the  government  has  made  from  his 
theory  of  the  Constitution.  The  first  and  most  dangerous  of 
these  departures  he  declares  to  be  the  adoption  of  the  twenty- 
fifth  section  of  the  Judiciary  Act  of  1789,  by  which  in  certain 


STATE   SOVEREIGNTY. 


713 


cases  appeals  from  the  judgments  of  the  supreme  courts  of  the 
States  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  were  au 
thorized.  He  declares  that  section  of  the  act  unconstitutional, 
because  it  makes  the  supreme  court  of  a  "  sovereign  "  State 
subordinate  to  the  judicial  power  of  the  United  States ;  and  he 
recommends  his  followers  never  to  rest  until  they  have  repealed, 
not  only  that  section,  but  also  what  he  calls  the  still  more  dan 
gerous  law  of  1833,  which  forbids  the  courts  of  the  States  to 
sit  in  judgment  on  the  acts  of  an  officer  of  the  United  States 
done  in  pursuance  of  national  law.  The  present  Congress  has 
won  the  unenviable  distinction  of  making  the  first  attempt,  since 
the  death  of  Calhoun,  to  revive  and  put  in  practice  his  disor 
ganizing  and  destructive  theory  of  government. 

Firmly  believing  that  these  doctrines  and  the  attempted  prac 
tice  of  the  present  Congress  are  erroneous  and  pernicious,  I  will 
state  briefly  the  counter-propositions. 

I  affirm,  first,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was 
not  created  by  the  government  of  the  States,  but  was  ordained 
and  established  by  the  only  sovereign  in  this  country,  —  the 
common  superior  of  both  the  States  and  the  nation,  —  the 
people  themselves ;  secondly,  that  the  United  States  is  a  nation, 
having  a  government  whose  powers,  as  defined  and  limited  by 
the  Constitution,  operate  upon  all  the  States  in  their  corporate 
capacity,  and  upon  all  the  people ;  thirdly,  that  by  its  legisla 
tive,  executive,  and  judicial  authority,  the  nation  is  armed  with 
adequate  power  to  enforce  all  the  provisions  of  the  Constitu 
tion  against  all  opposition  of  individuals  or  of  States,  at  all 
times  and  all  places  within  the  Union.  These  are  broad  prop 
ositions  ;  and  I  take  the  few  minutes  remaining  to  me  to  defend 
them. 

The  constitutional  history  of  this  country,  or  rather  the  his 
tory  of  sovereignty  and  government  in  this  country,  is  com 
prised  in  four  sharply  defined  epochs :  — 

First.  Prior  to  the  4th  of  July,  1776,  sovereignty,  so  far  as  it 
can  be  affirmed  of  this  country,  was  lodged  in  the  Crown  of 
Great  Britain.  Every  member  of  every  Colony  (the  Colonists 
were  not  citizens  but  subjects)  drew  his  legal  rights  from  the 
King  of  England.  "  Every  acre  of  land  in  this  country  was 
then  held  mediately  or  immediately  by  grants  from  the  Crown," 
and  "  all  the  civil  authority  then  existing  or  exercised  here 
flowed  from  the  head  of  the  British  empire." 


STATE   SOVEREIGNTY. 

Second.  On  the  4th  of  July,  1776,  the  people  of  these  Colo 
nies,  asserting  their  natural  inherent  right  as  sovereigns,  with 
drew  the  sovereignty  from  the  Crown  of  Great  Britain  and 
reserved  it  to  themselves.  In  so  far  as  they  delegated  this 
national  authority  at  all,  they  delegated  it  to  the  Continental 
Congress  assembled  at  Philadelphia.  That  Congress,  by  gen 
eral  consent,  became  the  supreme  government  of  this  country,  — 
executive,  judiciary,  and  legislature  in  one.  During  the  whole  of 
its  existence  it  wielded  the  supreme  power  of  the  new  nation. 

Third.  On  the  1st  of  March,  1781,  the  same  sovereign  power, 
the  people,  withdrew  the  authority  from  the  Continental  Con 
gress,  and  lodged  it,  so  far  as  they  lodged  it  at  all,  in  the  Con 
federation,  which,  though  a  league  of  States,  was  declared  to  be 
a  perpetual  union. 

Fourth.  When  at  last  our  fathers  found  the  Confederation 
too  weak  and  inefficient  for  the  purposes  of  a  great  nation,  they 
abolished  it,  and  lodged  the  national  authority,  enlarged  and 
strengthened  by  new  powers,  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  where,  in  spite  of  all  assaults,  it  still  remains.  All  these 
great  acts  were  done  by  the  only  sovereign  in  this  republic,  the 
people  themselves. 

That  no  one  may  charge  that  I  pervert  history  to  sustain  my 
own  theories,  I  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  not  one  of  the  Col 
onies  declared  itself  free  and  independent.  Neither  Virginia 
nor  Massachusetts  threw  off  its  allegiance  to  the  British  Crown 
as  a  colony.  The  great  Declaration  was  made  not  even  by  all 
the  Colonies  as  colonies,  but  it  was  made  in  the  name  and  by 
authority  of  "  all  the  good  people  of  the  Colonies,"  as  one  peo 
ple.  Let  me  fortify  this  position  by  a  great  name,  that  will  shine 
forever  in  the  constellation  of  our  Southern  sky,  the  name  of 
Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina.  He  was  a 
leading  member  of  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1787,  and 
also  a  member  of  the  convention  of  South  Carolina  which  rati 
fied  the  Constitution.  In  this  latter  convention  the  doctrine  of 
State  sovereignty  found  a  few  champions ;  and  their  attempt  to 
prevent  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  because  it  established 
a  supreme  national  government,  was  rebuked  by  him  in  these 
memorable  words.  I  quote  from  his  speech  as  recorded  in 
Elliott's  Debates. 

"This  admirable  manifesto  [the  Declaration  of  Independence],  which 
for  importance  of  matter  and  elegance  of  compositoin  stands  unrivalled, 


/  J  7  r 
SOVEREIGNTY.  ;I5 

sufficiently  confutes  the  honorable  gentleman's  doctrine  of  the  individual 
sovereignty  and  independence  of  the  several  States.  In  that  Declaration 
the  several  States  are  not  even  enumerated ;  but  after  reciting,  in  nervous 
language  and  with  convincing  arguments,  our  right  to  independence,  and 
the  tyranny  which  compelled  us  to  assert  it,  the  Declaration  is  made  in 
the  following  words  :  '  We,  therefore,  the  representatives  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  in  general  Congress  assembled,  appealing  to  the  Su 
preme  Judge  of  the  world  for  the  rectitude  of  our  intentions,  do,  in  the 
name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  good  people  of  these  Colonies,  solemnly 
publish  and  declare  that  these  united  Colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to 
be,  free  and  independent  States.' 

"  The  separate  independence  and  individual  sovereignty  of  the  several 
States  were  never  thought  of  by  the  enlightened  band  of  patriots  who 
framed  this  Declaration.  The  several  States  are  not  even  mentioned  by 
name  in  any  part  of  it,  as  if  it  was  intended  to  impress  this  maxim  on 
America,  that  our  freedom  and  independence  arose  from  our  union,  and 
that  without  it  we  could  neither  be  free  nor  independent.  Let  us,  then, 
consider  all  attempts  to  weaken  this  union  by  maintaining  that  each  State 
is  separately  and  individually  independent  as  a  species  of  political  heresy, 
which  can  never  benefit  us,  but  may  bring  on  us  the  most  serious  dis 
tresses."  1 

For  a  further  and  equally  powerful  vindication  of  the  same 
view,  I  refer  to  the  Commentaries  of  Mr.  Justice  Story.2  In  this 
same  connection,  and  as  a  pertinent  and  effective  response  to 
the  Democratic  doctrines  under  review,  I  quote  from  the  first 
message  of  Abraham  Lincoln,3  than  whom  no  man  of  our  gen 
eration  studied  the  origin  of  the  Union  more  profoundly. 

"  Our  States  have  neither  more  nor  less  power  than  that  reserved  to 
them  in  the  Union  by  the  Constitution,  no  one  of  them  ever  having  been 
a  State  out  of  the  Union.  The  original  ones  passed  into  the  Union  even 
before  they  cast  off  their  British  colonial  dependence,  and  the  new  ones 
each  came  into  the  Union  directly  from  a  condition  of  dependence,  ex 
cepting  Texas.  And  even  Texas,  in  its  temporary  independence,  was 
never  designated  a  State.  The  new  ones  only  took  the  designation  of 
States  on  coming  into  the  Union,  while  that  name  was  first  adopted  for 
the  old  ones  in  and  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Therein  the 
'  united  Colonies  '  were  declared  to  be  '  free  and  ^independent  States  ' ; 
but  even  then  the  object  plainly  was  not  to  declare  their  independence 
of  one  another,  or  of  the  Union,  but  directly  the  contrary,  as  their  mutual 
pledge  and  their  mutual  action  before,  at  the  time,  and  afterwards  abun 
dantly  show 

1  Elliott's  Debates,  Vol.  IV.  pp.  301,  302.  2  Book  II.  sect.  213-215. 

»  July  4,  1861. 


;i6  STATE  SOVEREIGNTY. 

"  The  States  have  their  status  in  the  Union,  and  they  have  no  other 
legal  status.  If  they  break  from  this,  they  can  only  do  so  against  law,  and 
by  revolution.  The  Union,  and  not  themselves  separately,  procured  their 
independence  and  their  liberty.  By  conquest  or  purchase  the  Union 
gave  each  of  them  whatever  of  independence  and  liberty  it  has.  The 
Union  is  older  than  any  of  the  States,  and  in  fact  it  created  them  as 
States.  Originally  some  dependent  colonies  made  the  Union,  and  in 
turn  the  Union  threw  off  their  old  dependence  for  them,  and  made  them 
States,  such  as  they  are.  Not  one  of  them  ever  had  a  State  constitution 
independent  of  the  Union.  Of  course  it  is  not  forgotten  that  all  the 
new  States  framed  their  constitutions  before  they  entered  the  Union  ; 
nevertheless,  dependent  upon  and  preparatory  to  coming  into  the  Union." 

In  further  enforcement  of  the  doctrine  that  the  State  govern 
ments  were  not  the  sovereigns  who  created  this  government,  I 
refer  to  the  great  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  in  the  case  of  Chisholm  v.  The  State  of  Georgia,  —  a 
decision  replete  with  the  most  enlightened  national  spirit,  in 
which  the  court  stamps  with  its  indignant  condemnation  the 
notion  that  the  State  of  Georgia  was  "  sovereign  "  in  any  sense 
that  made  it  independent  of  or  superior  to  the  nation.  Mr.  Jus 
tice  Wilson  said :  — 

"  As  a  judge  of  this  court,  I  know,  and  can  decide  upon  the  knowl 
edge,  that  the  citizens  of  Georgia,  when  they  acted  upon  the  large  scale 
of  the  Union,  as  a  part  of  the  'people  of  the  United  States,'  did  not 
surrender  the  supreme  or  sovereign  power  to  that  State ;  but,  as  to  the 
purposes  of  the  Union,  retained  it  to  themselves.  As  to  the  purposes  of 
the  Union,  therefore,  Georgia  is  NOT  a  sovereign  State.  .... 

"  Whoever  considers,  in  a  combined  and  comprehensive  view,  the  gen 
eral  texture  of  the  Constitution,  will  be  satisfied  that  the  people  of  the 
United  States  intended  to  form  themselves  into  a  nation  for  national  pur 
poses.  They  instituted  for  such  purposes  a  national  government,  com 
plete  in  all  its  parts,  with  powers  legislative,  executive,  and  judiciary ; 
and,  in  all  those  powers,  extending  over  the  whole  nation.  Is  it  congru 
ous  that,  with  regard  to  such  purposes,  any  man  or  body  of  men,  any 
person,  natural  or  artificial,  should  be  permitted  to  claim  successfully  an 
entire  exemption  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  national  government?  "  1 

Mr.  Chairman,  the  dogma  of  State  sovereignty,  which  has 
reawakened  to  such  vigorous  life  in  this  chamber,  has  borne 
such  bitter  fruits,  and  entailed  such  suffering  upon  our  people, 
that  it  deserves  more  particular  notice. 

It  should  be  noticed  that  the  word  "  sovereignty  "  cannot  be 

i  2  Dallas,  457,  465. 


STATE  SOVEREIGNTY. 


717 


fitly  applied  to  any  government  in  this  country.  It  is  not  found 
in  our  Constitution.  It  is  a  feudal  word,  born  of  the  despotism 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  was  unknown  even  in  imperial  Rome. 
A  sovereign  is  a  person,  a  prince,  who  has  subjects  that  owe  him 
allegiance.  There  is  no  one  paramount  sovereign  in  the  United 
States.  There  is  no  person  here  who  holds  any  title  or  authority 
whatever,  except  the  official  authority  given  him  by  law.  Amer 
icans  are  not  subjects,  but  citizens.  Our  only  sovereign  is  the 
whole  people.  To  talk  about  the  "  inherent  sovereignty  "  of  a 
corporation  —  an  artificial  person  —  is  to  talk  nonsense ;  and  we 
ought  to  reform  our  habit  of  speech  on  that  subject. 

But  what  do  gentlemen  mean  when  they  tell  us  that  a  State  is 
sovereign?  What  ctoes  sovereignty  mean,  in  its  accepted  use, 
but  a  political  corporation  having  no  superior?  Is  a  State  of 
this  Union  such  a  corporation?  Let  us  test  it  by  a  few  exam 
ples  drawn  from  the  Constitution. 

No  State  of  this  Union  can  make  war  or  conclude  a  peace. 
Without  the  consent  of  Congress  it  cannot  raise  or  support  an 
army  or  a  navy.  It  cannot  make  a  treaty  with  a  foreign  power, 
nor  enter  into  any  agreement  or  compact  with  another  State. 
It  cannot  levy  imposts  or  duties  on  imports  or  exports.  It 
cannot  coin  money.  It  cannot  regulate  commerce.  It  cannot 
put  a  single  ship  in  commission  anywhere  on  the  high  seas ;  if 
it  should,  that  ship  would  be  seized  as  a  pirate,  or  confiscated  by 
the  laws  of  the  United  States.  A  State  cannot  emit  bills  of 
credit.  It  can  enact  no  law  which  makes  anything  but  gold  and 
silver  a  legal  tender.  It  has  no  flag  except  the  flag  of  the 
Union.  And  there  are  many  other  subjects  on  which  the  States 
are  forbidden  by  the  Constitution  to  legislate.  How  much  in 
herent  sovereignty  is  left  in  a  corporation  which  is  thus  shorn  of 
all  these  great  attributes  of  sovereignty? 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
may  declare  null  and  void  any  law  or  any  clause  of  the  consti 
tution  of  a  State  which  happens  to  be  in  conflict  with  the  Con 
stitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States.  Again,  the  States 
appear  as  plaintiffs  and  defendants  before  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States.  They  may  sue  each  other ;  and,  until  the 
Eleventh  Amendment  was  adopted,  a  citizen  might  sue  a  State. 
These  "  sovereigns  "  may  all  be  summoned  before  their  com 
mon  superior  to  be  judged.  And  yet  they  are  endowed  with 
supreme  inherent  sovereignty ! 


;i 8  STATE  SOVEREIGNTY. 

Again,  the  government  of  a  State  may  be  absolutely  abolished 
by  Congress,  in  case  it  is  not  Republican  in  form.  And  finally, 
to  cap  the  climax  of  this  absurd  pretension,  every  right  pos 
sessed  by  one  of  these  "  sovereign  "  States,  every  inherent  sov 
ereign  right  except  the  single  right  to  equal  representation  in 
the  Senate,  may  be  taken  away,  without  its  consent,  by  the  vote 
of  two  thirds  of  Congress  and  three  fourths  of  the  States.  But, 
in  spite  of  all  these  disabilities,  we  hear  them  paraded  as  inde 
pendent  sovereign  States,  the  creators  of  the  Union  and  the 
dictators  of  its  powers.  How  inherently  "  sovereign  "  must  be 
that  State  west  of  the  Mississippi  which  the  nation  bought  and 
paid  for  with  the  public  money,  and  permitted  to  come  into  the 
Union  a  half-century  after  the  Constitution*  was  adopted  !  And 
yet  we  are  told  that  the  States  are  inherently  sovereign,  and 
created  the  national  government ! 

Read  a  long  line  of  luminous  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
Take  the  life  of  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  that  great  judge,  who 
found  the  Constitution  paper  and  made  it  power,  who  found  it 
a  skeleton  and  clothed  it  with  flesh  and  blood.  By  his  wisdom 
and  genius  he  made  it  a  potent  and  beneficent  instrument  for  the 
government  of  a  great  nation.  Everywhere  he  repelled  the  in 
sidious  and  dangerous  heresy  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  States 
in  the  sense  in  which  it  has  been  used  in  these  debates. 

Half  a  century  ago  this  heresy  threatened  the  stability  of 
the  nation.  The  eloquence  of  Webster  and  his  compeers,  and 
the  patriotism  and  high  courage  of  Andrew  Jackson,  resisted, 
and  for  a  time  destroyed,  its  power ;  but  it  continued  to  live  as 
the  evil  genius,  the  incarnate  devil,  of  America,  and  in  1861  it 
was  the  fatal  phantom  that  lured  eleven  millions  of  our  people 
into  rebellion  against  their  government.  Hundreds  of  thou 
sands  of  those  who  took  up  arms  against  the  Union  stubbornly 
resisted  all  inducements  to  that  fatal  step  until  they  were  sum 
moned  by  the  authority  of  their  States.  The  dogma  of  State 
sovereignty  in  alliance  with  chattel  slavery  finally  made  its  ap 
peal  to  that  court  of  last  resort,  where  laws  are  silent  and  where 
kings  and  nations  appear  in  arms  for  judgment.  In  that  awful 
court  of  war  two  questions  were  tried  :  Shall  slavery  live?  and, 
Is  a  State  so  sovereign  that  it  may  nullify  the  laws  and  destroy 
the  Union?  Those  two  questions  were  tried  on  the  thousand 
battle-fields  of  the  war ;  and  if  war  ever  "  legislates,"  as  a  lead 
ing  Democrat  of  Ohio  once  wisely  affirmed,  then  our  war  legis- 


STATE   SOVEREIGNTY. 


719 


lated  finally  upon  those  subjects,  and  determined  beyond  all  con 
troversy  that  slavery  should  never  again  live  in  this  republic,  and 
that  there  is  not  sovereignty  enough  in  any  State  to  authorize 
its  people  either  to  destroy  the  Union  or  to  nullify  its  laws. 

I  am  unwilling  to  believe  that  any  considerable  number  of 
Americans  will  ever  again  push  that  doctrine  to  the  same  ex 
treme;  and  yet,  in  these  summer  months  of  1879,  in  the  Con 
gress  of  the  reunited  nation,  we  find  the  majority  drifting  fast 
and  far  in  the  wrong  direction,  by  reasserting  much  of  that  doc 
trine  which  the  war  ought  to  have  settled  forever.  And  what 
is  more  lamentable,  such  declarations  as  those  which  I  read  at  the 
outset  are  finding  their  echoes  in  many  portions  of  the  country 
which  was  lately  the  theatre  of  war.  No  one  can  read  the  pro 
ceedings  at  certain  recent  celebrations,  without  observing  the 
growing  determination  to  assert  that  the  men  who  fought  against 
the  Union  were  not  engaged  in  a  treasonable  conspiracy  against 
the  nation,  but  that  they  did  right  to  fight  for  their  States,  and 
that  in  the  long  run  the  lost  cause  will  be  victorious.  These  in 
dications  are  filling  the  people  with  anxiety  and  indignation ; 
and  they  are  beginning  to  inquire  whether  the  war  has  really 
settled  these  great  questions. 

I  remind  gentlemen  on  the  other  side,  that  we  have  not  our 
selves  revived  these  issues.  We  had  hoped  they  were  settled 
beyond  recall,  and  that  peace  and  friendship  might  be  fully  re 
stored  to  our  people.  But  the  truth  requires  me  to  say,  that 
there  is  one  indispensable  ground  of  agreement  on  which  alone 
we  can  stand  together,  and  it  is  this :  the  war  for  the  Union 
was  right,  everlastingly  right;  and  the  war  against  the  Union 
was  wrong,  forever  wrong.  However  honest  and  sincere  indi 
viduals  may  have  been,  Secession  was  none  the  less  rebellion 
and  treason.  We  defend  the  States  in  the  exercise  of  their 
many  and  important  rights,  and  we  defend  with  equal  zeal  the 
rights  of  the  United  States.  The  rights  and  authority  of  both 
were  received  from  the  people,  —  the  only  source  of  inherent 
power. 

We  insist  not  only  that  this  is  a  nation,  but  that  the  power 
of  the  government,  within  its  own  prescribed  sphere,  operates 
directly  upon  the  States,  and  upon  all  the  people.  We  insist 
that  our  laws  shall  be  construed  by  our  own  courts  and  en 
forced  by  our  own  Executive.  Any  theory  which  is  inconsistent 
with  this  doctrine  we  will  resist  to  the  end. 


720  STATE   SOVEREIGNTY. 

Applying  these  reflections  to  the  subject  of  national  elections 
embraced  in  this  bill,  I  remind  gentlemen  that  this  is  a  national 
House  of  Representatives.  The  people  of  my  Congressional 
district  have  a  right  to  know  that  a  man  elected  in  New  York 
City  is  elected  honestly  and  lawfully;  for  he  joins  in  making 
laws  for  forty-five  millions  of  people.  Every  citizen  of  the 
United  States  has  an  interest  and  a  right  in  every  election 
within  the  republic  where  national  representatives  are  chosen. 
We  insist  that  these  laws  relating  to  our  national  elections  shall 
be  enforced,  not  nullified ;  shall  remain  on  the  statute-books, 
and  not  be  repealed ;  and  that  the  just  and  legal  supervision 
of  these  elections  shall  never  again  be  surrendered  by  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States.  By  our  consent  it  never  shall 
be  surrendered. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  this  bill  is  about  to  be  launched  upon 
its  stormy  passage.  It  goes  not  into  unknown  waters ;  for  its 
fellows  have  been  wrecked  in  the  same  sea.  Its  short,  disas 
trous,  and,  I  may  add,  ignoble  voyage,  is  likely  to  be  straight 
to  the  bottom. 


.  IN  reply  to  Mr.  Hurd  of  Ohio,  on  the  same  day,  Mr.  Garfield  said  :  — 

MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —  Two  points  were  made  by  my  colleague 
from  Ohio  to  which  I  desire  to  call  attention.  To  strengthen 
his  position,  that  the  United  States  has  no  voters,  he  has 
quoted,  as  other  gentlemen'  have  quoted,  the  case  of  Minor  v. 
Happersett.1 

The  question  before  the  court  in  that  case  was,  whether  a 
provision  in  a  State  constitution  which  confines  the  right  of 
voting  to  male  citizens  of  the  United  States  is  a  violation  of 
the  Fourteenth  Amendment  of  the  Constitution.  The  court 
decided  that  it  is  not;  and  in  delivering  his  opinion  the 
Chief  Justice  took  occasion  to  say  that  "  the  United  States  has 
no  voters  in  the  States,  of  its  own  creation."  Now,  all  the 
gentlemen  on  the  other  side  who  have  quoted  this  decision 
have  left  out  the  words  "  of  its  own  creation,"  which  makes  a 
very  essential  difference.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
declares  who  shall  vote  for  members  of  Congress,  and  it  adopts 
the  great  body  of  voters  whose  qualifications  may  be  or  have 
been  prescribed  by  the  laws  of  the  States.  The  power  of  adop- 

1  21  Wallace,  170. 


STATE  SOVEREIGNTY.  721 

tion  is  no  less  a  great  governmental  power  than  the  power  of 
creation. 

But  the  second  point  to  which  I  wish  to  refer,  and  which  has 
been  made  by  several  gentlemen,  and  markedly  by  my  col 
league,  is  this :  that  the  contemporaneous  construction  of  that 
clause  of  the  Constitution  which  provides  that  Congress  may 
at  any  time  make  or  alter  the  regulations  in  regard  to  the  time, 
place,  and  manner  of  holding  elections,  has  determined  that 
Congress  can  never  exercise  that  right  so  long  as  the  States 
make  provision  for  it.  So  long  as  the  States  do  not  neglect 
or  refuse  to  act,  or  are  not  prevented  by  rebellion  or  war  from 
acting,  it  is  their  exclusive  right  to  control  the  subject.  That 
is  what  my  colleague  says.  That  is  what  is  said,  in  the  Record 
of  May  29,  by  a  distinguished  member  of  the  Senate.1 

On  the  2 1st  of  August,  1789,  in  the  first  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  that  ever  met,  Mr.  Burke,  a  member  from  South 
Carolina,  offered  the  following  as  an  amendment  to  the  Consti 
tution  :  "  Congress  shall  not  alter,  modify,  or  interfere  in  the 
times,  places,  or  manner  of  holding  elections  of  Senators  or 
Representatives,  except  when  any  State  shall  refuse,  or  neglect, 
or  be  unable,  by  invasion  or  rebellion,  to  make  such  elec 
tion."  2  That  was  the  very  proposition  which  my  colleague 
says  is  the  meaning  of  the  Constitution  as  it  now  stands.  That 
amendment  was  offered  in  a  House  of  Representatives  nearly 
one  half  of  whose  members  were  in  the  Convention  that  framed 
the  Constitution.  That  amendment  was  debated,  and  I  hold 
in  my  hand  the  brief  record  of  the  debate.  Fisher  Ames  of 
Massachusetts,  approving  of  the  clause  as  it  now  stands,  — 

"Thought  this  one  of  the  most  justifiable  of  all  the  powers  of  Con 
gress  ;  it  was  essential  to  a  body  representing  the  whole  community, 
that  they  should  have  power  to  regulate  their  own  elections,  in  order 
to  secure  a  representation  from  every  part,  and  prevent  any  improper 
regulations,  calculated  to  answer  party  purposes  only.  It  is  a  solecism 
in  politics  to  let  others  judge  for  them,  and  is  a  departure  from  the  prin 
ciples  upon  which  the  Constitution  was  founded [He  thought] 

inadequate  regulations  were  equally  injurious  as  having  none,  and  that 
such  an  amendment  as  was  now  proposed  would  alter  the  Constitution  ; 
it  would  vest  the  supreme  authority  in  places  where  it  was  never  con 
templated 

"  Mr.  Sherman  observed,  that  the  Convention  were  very  unanimous  in 

1  Mr.  Wallace.  2  Annals  of  Congress,  Vol.  I.  p.  797. 

VOL.    II.  46 


722  STATE  SOVEREIGNTY. 

passing  this  clause ;  that  it  was  an  important  provision,  and  if  it  was 
resigned  it  would  tend  to  subvert  the  government. 

"  Mr.  Madison  was  willing  to  make  every  amendment  that  was  required 
by  the  States,  which  did  not  tend  to  destroy  the  principles  and  efficacy 
of  the  Constitution ;  he  conceived  that  the  proposed  amendment  would 
have  that  tendency,  he  was  therefore  opposed  to  it 

"  Mr.  Goodhue  hoped  the  amendment  never  would  obtain Now, 

rather  than  this  amendment  should  take  effect,  he  would  vote  against 
all  [the  amendments]  that  had  been  agreed  to.  His  greatest  apprehen 
sions  were,  that  the  State  governments  would  oppose  and  thwart  the  gen 
eral  one  to  such  a  degree  as  finally  to  overturn  it.  Now,  to  guard  against 
this  evil,  he  wished  the  Federal  government  to  possess  every  power  ne 
cessary  to  its  existence."  1 

After  a  full  debate,  in  which  the  doctrine  of  State  rights  was 
completely  overwhelmed  so  far  as  involved  in  this  amendment, 
the  vote  was  taken,  and  twenty- three  votes  were  given  in  favor 
of  the  amendment  and  twenty-eight,  votes  against  it.  It  did 
not  get  even  a  majority,  much  less  a  two-thirds  vote,  in  the 
House ;  and  in  the  Senate  the  subject  was  never  called  up  at  all. 
Now,  who  were  the  men  that  voted  against  it?  Let  me  read 
some  of  their  honored  names:  Fisher  Ames,  of  Massachusetts ; 
Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton ;  Clymer,  of  Pennsylvania,  whose 
distinguished  descendant  is  a  member  of  this  House ;  Fitzsim- 
mons,  of  Pennsylvania ;  Muhlenberg,  of  Pennsylvania,  who  was 
Speaker  of  the  first  House  of  Representatives ;  Lee  and  Madi 
son,  of  Virginia;  Trumbull  and  Sherman,  of  Connecticut,  —  all 
these  great  names  are  recorded  against  a  proposition  declaring 
what  my  colleague  defends  as  the  correct  interpretation  of  the 
existing  clause  on  that  subject.  That  is  all  I  desire  to  say. 
1  Annals  of  Congress,  Vol.  I.  pp.  797-801. 


OBEDIENCE  TO    LAW   THE   FIRST  DUTY 
OF    CONGRESS. 

SPEECH   DELIVERED   IN  THE   HOUSE    OF   REPRESENTATIVES, 
MARCH  17,  1880. 


WHEN  the  extra  session  of  the  Forty-sixth  Congress  came  to  an  end, 
July  i,  1879,  the  usual  appropriations  had  been  voted  save  that  for  the 
United  States  Marshals.  After  June  30,  1879,  all  the  government  busi 
ness  pertaining  to  their  offices  was  performed  by  the  marshals  without  pay 
and  at  their  own  expense,  in  the  expectation  that  the  money  would  be 
voted  at  the  regular  session.  In  an  amendment  to  a  deficiency  bill,  re 
ported  March  12,  1880,  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  undertook  to 
deal  with  this  question.  One  of  their  amendments  read,  "  For  the  pay 
ment  of  the  fees  and  expenses  of  United  States  Marshals  and  their  gen 
eral  deputies  during  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1880,  $600,000." 
Pending  the  bill,  Mr.  Garfield  addressed  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  in 
a  speech  in  which,  after  touching  upon  an  amendment  that  abolished 
the  office  of  Public  Printer  and  created  that  of  Congressional  Printer, 
he  discussed  the  duty  of  Congress  to  obey  the  law.  His  remarks  on  the 
first  topic  are  here  omitted. 

The  two  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  referred  to  below  are  no 
doubt  those  of  Ex  parte  Albert  Siebold  et  at.  and  Ex  parte  Augustus  F. 
Clarke.  In  both  cases  the  petitioners  were  State  judges  of  election,  tried, 
convicted,  and  sentenced  to  punishment  for  violating  Sections  5515  and 
5522  of  the  Revised  Statutes.  Both  cases  involved  the  constitutionality 
of  the  election  laws.  Mr.  Justice  Bradley  rendered  an  elaborate  decis 
ion  in  the  former  case  :  the  decision  in  the  second  was  rested  upon  the 
first.  Justices  Field  and  Clifford  dissented.  Neither  case  is  found  in 
Otto's  Reports,  but  a  report  is  found  in  the  Weekly  Cincinnati  Law 
Bulletin,  Vol.  V.  pp.  125-127.  The  decision  in  both  cases  was  rendered 
March  8,  1880.  It  is  a  sweeping  affirmation  of  the  constitutionality  of 
the  legislation  in  controversy  between  Republicans  and  Democrats  in 
1879-80.  The  second  paragraph  of  the  Bulletin's  synopsis  is  here 
given  :  — 


724  OBEDIENCE   TO  LA  W  BY  CONGRESS. 

"  That  Congress  had  the  power,  by  the  Constitution,  to  pass  this  reso 
lution  referred  to,  viz.  Section  5515  of  the  Revised  Statutes,  which  makes 
it  a  penal  offence  against  the  United  States  for  any  officer  of  elections,  at 
an  election  held  for  Representatives  in  Congress,  to  neglect  to  perform  or 
to  violate  any  duty  in  regard  to  such  election,  whether  required  by  the 
law  of  the  State  or  of  the  United  States,  or  knowingly  to  do  any  act  un 
authorized  by  any  such  law,  with  intent  to  affect  such  election,  or  to 
make  a  fraudulent  certificate  of  the  result;  and  Section  5522,  which 
makes  it  a  penal  offence  for  any  officer  or  other  person,  with  or  without 
process,  to  obstruct,  hinder,  bribe,  or  interfere  with  the  supervisor  of  the 
election,  or  the  marshal  or  deputy  marshal,  in  the  performance  of  the 
duty  required  of  them  by  any  law  of  the  United  States,  or  to  prevent  their 
free  attendance  at  the  place  of  registration  or  election,  etc. ;  also  Sections 
2011,  2012,  2016,  2017,  2021,  and  2022,  Title  26,  Revised  Statutes, 
which  authorize  the  Circuit  Courts  to  appoint  supervisors  of  such  elec 
tions,  and  the  marshal  to  appoint  special  deputies  to  aid  and  assist  them, 
and  which  prescribe  the  duties  of  such  supervisors  and  deputy  marshals, 
these  being  the  laws  provided  by  Congress  in  the  Enforcement  Act  of 
May  31, 1870,  and  the  supplement  thereto  of  February  28, 1877,  f°r  super 
vising  elections  of  Representatives,  and  for  preventing  frauds  therein." 


MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —  My  colleague,1  in  his  speech  opening 
the  discussion  upon  this  bill,  made  the  announcement  in 
substance,  and  it  remains  without  being  contradicted  or  pro 
tested  against  by  any  one  on  his  side  of  the  house,  first,  that 
"  we  have  not  hitherto  made,  do  not  in  this  bill,  and  will  not  in 
any  future  bill,  make  any  appropriation  whatever  for  supervisors 
or  special  deputy  marshals,  so  far  as  they  have  to  do  with  Con 
gressional  elections."  He  asserted  that  it  is  not  proper  for  any 
officer  of  the  government  to  appoint  special  deputy  marshals, 
when  no  appropriation  has  been  made  for  that  specific  purpose. 
Then  further  on  he  declares  (I  quote  from  his  printed  speech)  :  — 

"  And  I  desire  to  say  that  because  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  has  decided  that  the  election  Jaw  is  constitutional  by  a  sort  of 
eight-by-seven  decision,  —  and  I  mean  by  that  a  division  apparently  ac 
cording  to  party  lines,  (without  impugning  the  good  faith  of  any  mem 
ber  of  the  Supreme  Court,  but  to  show  how  differently  a  legal  question 
may  appear  to  persons  who  have  been  educated  in  different  political 
schools,)  —  that  although  that  court  has  decided  the  constitutionality  of 
the  law,  that  when  we  come,  as  legislators,  to  appropriate  money  it  is  our 

1  Mr.  McMahon. 


OBEDIENCE    TO  LAW  BY  CONGRESS. 


725 


duty  to  say,  Is  this  law  constitutional  ?  or,  if  constitutional,  is  it  a  good 
law,  and  are  we  bound  to  appropriate  money  for  it?  "  l 

He  undertakes,  as  will  be  seen,  to  throw  contempt  on  that 
decision  by  styling  it  "  a  sort  of  eight-by-seven  decision."  I 
remind  him  that  it  is  a  seven-to-two  decision,  having  been 
adopted  by  a  larger  number  of  the  members  of  the  court  than 
the  majority  of  its  decisions.  It  is  a  decision  of  a  broad,  sweep 
ing  character,  and  declares  that  Congress  may  take  the  whole 
control  of  Congressional  elections,  or  a  partial  control,  as  they 
choose ;  that  the  election  law,  as  it  stands  on  the  national  stat 
ute-book,  is  the  supreme  law  of  the  land  on  that  subject.  More 
than  that:  the  Supreme  Court,  not  only  in  this  case  but  in 
another  recent  case,  has  made  a  declaration  which  ought  to  be 
engraven  upon  the  minds  and  hearts  of  all  the  people  of  this 
country.  And  this  is  its  substance :  that  a  law  of  Congress 
interpenetrates  and  becomes  a  part  of  every  law  of  every  State 
of  this  Union  to  which  its  subject-matter  is  applicable,  and  is 
binding  upon  all  people  and  covers  every  foot  of  our  soil. 

This  is  the  voice  of  the  Constitution.  Now,  therefore,  under 
this  decision  the  election  laws  of  the  United  States  are  the  laws 
of  every  State  of  this  Union.  No  judge  of  election,  no  State 
officer  or  other  person  connected  with  any  Congressional  elec 
tion,  no  elector  who  offers  his  ballot  at  any  such  election,  can, 
with  impunity,  lift  his  hand  or  do  any  act  against  any  of  the 
provisions  of  these  laws.  They  rest  upon  Congressional  elec 
tions  in  every  State  like  the  "  casing  air,"  broad  and  general, 
protecting  with  their  dignity  every  act,  and  penetrating  with 
their  authority  every  function,  of  Congressional  elections.  They 
are  the  supreme  law  of  the  land  on  that  subject. 

But  now  a  Representative,  speaking  for  the  Democratic  party 
in  this  House,  rises,  —  not  with  the  plea  which  he  could  have 
made  with  some  show  of  plausibility  last  year,  that  the  law  is  un 
constitutional,  and  that  therefore  they  would  not  enforce  it,  but, 
with  a  constitutional  law,  declared  so  by  the  Supreme  Court, 
covering  him  and  filling  the  republic  from  end  to  end,  reaching 
everywhere  and  covering  every  foot  of  our  soil  where  a  Congres 
sional  election  can  be  held, — he  rises  in  his  place  and  declares 
that  the  Democratic  party  will  not  execute  that  law  nor  permit 
it  to  be  obeyed.  We,  who  are  the  sworn  law-makers  of  the 
nation,  and  ought  to  be  examples  of  respect  for  and  obedience 

1  Congressional  Record,  March  12,  iSSo,  p.  1517. 


726  OBEDIENCE   TO  LAW  BY  CONGRESS. 

to  the  law, — we,  who  before  we  took  our  first  step  in  legisla 
tion  swore  before  God  and  our  country  that  we  would  support 
the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  —  we  are  now  invited  to  become 
conspicuous  leaders  in  the  violation  of  the  law.  My  colleague 
announces  his  purpose  to  break  the  law,  and  invites  Congress  to 
follow  him  in  his  assault  upon  it. 

My  colleague  tries  to  shield  his  violation  of  the  law  behind 
a  section  of  the  statutes  which  provides  that  no  disbursing  or 
other  officer  shall  make  any  contract  involving  the  expenditure 
of  money  beyond  what  is  appropriated  for  the  purpose.  I  an 
swer  that  I  hold  in  my  hand  a  later  law,  a  later  statute,  which 
governs  the  restrictive  law  of  which  he  speaks,  which  governs 
him,  and  governs  the  courts.  It  is  the  election  law  itself.  I 
invite  attention  briefly  to  its  substance. 

Sections  2011  and  2012  of  the  Revised  Statutes  provide  that, 
upon  the  application  of  any  two  citizens  of  any  city  of  more  than 
twenty  thousand  inhabitants  to  have  a  national  election  guarded 
and  scrutinized,  the  judge  of  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United 
States  shall  hold  his  court  open  during  the  ten  days  preceding 
the  election.  In  open  court,  from  day  to  day  and  from  time 
to  time,  the  judge  shall  appoint,  and  under  the  seal  of  the  court 
shall  commission,  two  citizens  of  different  political  parties,  who 
are  voters  within  the  precinct  where  they  reside,  to  be  supervi 
sors  of  the  election.  That  law  is  mandatory  upon  the  judge. 
Should  he  refuse  to  obey,  he  can  be  impeached  of  high  crimes 
and  misdemeanors.  He  must  not  stop  to  inquire  whether  an 
appropriation  has  been  made  to  pay  these  supervisors.  The 
rights  of  citizens  are  involved,  and  upon  their  application  the 
judge  must  act. 

Again,  Section  2021  provides  that,  on  the  application  of  two 
citizens  of  such  city,  the  Marshal  of  the  United  States  shall 
appoint  special  deputy  marshals  to  protect  the  supervisors  in 
the  execution  of  their  duty.  And  the  law  is  mandatory  upon 
the  Marshal.  He  must  obey  it,  under  the  pains  and  penalties 
of  the  law.  What  then?  When  the  supervisors  and  special 
deputy  marshals  have  been  appointed,  they  find  their  duties 
plainly  prescribed  in  the  law. 

And  then  Section  5521  provides  that,  if  the  supervisors  or 
marshals  neglect  or  refuse  to  perform  fully  all  these  duties 
enjoined  upon  them,  they  are  liable  to  fine  and  imprisonment. 
They  cannot  excuse  their  neglect  by  saying,  "  We  will  not  act, 


OBEDIENCE    TO  LAW  BY  CONGRESS.          727 

because  Congress  has  not  appropriated  the  money  to  pay  us." 
All  these  officers  are  confronted  by  the  imperial  command  of 
the  law,  —  first  to  the  judge  and  marshal  to  appoint,  then  to  the 
supervisor  and  deputy  marshal  to  act,  and  to  act  under  the 
pains  and  penalties  of  fine  and  imprisonment.  Impeachment 
enforces  the  obedience  of  the  judge;  fine  and  imprisonment, 
the  obedience  of  the  supervisors  and  deputy  marshals. 

Now  comes  one  other  mandatory  order :  in  the  last  section 
of  this  long  chapter  of  legislation,  the  majestic  command  of 
the  law  is  addressed  both  to  Congress  and  the  Treasury.  It 
declares  that  there  "  shall  be  paid "  out  of  the  Treasury  five 
dollars  a  day  to  these  officers  as  compensation  for  their  ser 
vices.  Here  too  the  law  is  equally  imperious  and  mandatory; 
it  addresses  itself  to  the  conscience  of  every  member  of  this 
House,  with  only  this  difference :  we  cannot  be  impeached  for 
disobedience ;  we  cannot  be  fined  or  locked  up  in  the  peniten 
tiary  for  voting  "  No,"  and  refusing  the  appropriation ;  we  can 
not  be  fined  or  imprisoned  if  we  refuse  to  do  our  duty.  And 
so,  shielded  by  the  immunity  of  his  privilege  as  a  Represent 
ative,  my  colleague  sets  the  example  to  all  officers  and  all 
people  of  deliberately  and  with  clear-sighted  purpose  violating 
the  law  of  the  land.  Thus  he  seeks  to  nullify  the  law.  Thus  he 
hopes  to  thwart  the  nation's  collected  will. 

Does  my  colleague  reflect  that  in  doing  this  he  runs  the  risk 
of  vitiating  every  national  election?  Suppose  his  lead  be  fol 
lowed,  and  the  demand  of  citizens  for  supervisors  and  marshals 
is  made  and  refused  because  an  appropriation  has  not  been 
voted.  Does  he  not  see  the  possibility  of  vitiating  every  elec 
tion,  where  fraud  and  violence  are  not  suppressed  and  the  law 
has  not  been  complied  with?  Yet  he  would  risk  the  validity 
of  all  the  Congressional  elections  of  the  United  States.  Rather 
than  abandon  his  party's  purpose,  he  would  make  Congress  the 
chief  of  the  law-breakers  of  the  land. 

Mr.  Chairman,  when  I  took  my  seat  as  a  member  of  this 
House,  I  took  it  with  all  the  responsibilities  which  the  place 
brought  upon  me ;  and  among  others  was  my  duty  to  keep  the 
obligations  of  the  law.  Where  the  law  speaks  in  mandatory 
terms  to  everybody  else  and  then  to  me,  I  should  deem  it 
cowardly  and  dishonorable  if  I  skulked  behind  my  legislative 
privilege  for  the  purpose  of  disobeying  and  breaking  the  su 
preme  law  of  the  land. 


728  OBEDIENCE    TO  LAW  BY  CONGRESS. 

The  issue  now  made  is  somewhat  different  from  that  of  the 
last  session,  but,  in  my  judgment,  it  is  not  less  significant  and 
dangerous.  I  would  gladly  waive  any  party  advantage  which 
this  controversy  might  give,  for  the  sake  of  that  calm  and  set 
tled  peace  which  would  reign  in  this  hall  if  we  all  obeyed  the 
law.  But  if  the  leaders  on  the  other  side  are  still  determined 
to  rush  upon  their  fate  by  forcing  upon  the  country  this  last 
issue,  —  that  because  the  Democratic  party  happen  not  to  like 
a  law  they  will  not  obey  it,  —  because  they  happen  not  to  ap 
prove  of  the  spirit  and  character  of  a  law,  they  will  not  let  it  be 
executed,  —  I  say  to  gentlemen  on  the  other  side,  if  you  are 
determined  to  make  such  an  issue,  it  is  high  time  that  the 
American  people  should  know  it. 

Here  is  the  volume  of  our  laws.  More  sacred  than  the 
Twelve  Tables  of  Rome,  this  rock  of  the  law  rises  in  monumen 
tal  grandeur  alike  above  the  people  and  the  President,  above 
the  courts,  above  Congress,  commanding  everywhere  reverence 
and  obedience  to  its  supreme  authority.  Yet  the  dominant 
party  in  this  House  virtually  declares :  "  Any  part  of  this  vol 
ume  that  we  do  not  like  and  cannot  repeal,  we  will  disobey.  We 
have  tried  to  repeal  these  election  laws ;  we  have  failed  because 
we  had  not  the  constitutional  power;  the  Constitution  says 
they  shall  stand  in  their  power  and  authority;  but  we,  the 
Democratic  party,  in  defiance  of  the  Constitution,  declare  that, 
if  we  cannot  destroy  them  outright  by  repeal,  they  shall  be 
left  to  crumble  into  ruin  by  wanton  and  lawless  neglect."  Mr. 
Chairman,  I  ask  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  whether  they 
wish  to  maintain  this  attitude  in  regard  to  the  legislation  of 
this  country.  Are  they  willing  to  start  on  a  hunt  through  the 
statutes,  and  determine  for  themselves  what  they  will  obey 
and  what  they  will  disobey?  That  is  the  meaning  of  my  col 
league's  speech.  If  it  means  anything,  it  means  that.  He  is 
not  an  old  Brandenburg  Elector,  but  an  elector  in  this  novel 
and  modern  sense,  that  he  will  elect  what  laws  he  will  obey  and 
what  he  will  disobey,  and  in  so  far  as  his  power  can  go  he  will 
infect  with  his  spirit  of  disobedience  all  the  good  people  of  this 
country  who  trust  him. 

Mr.  Chairman,  by  far  the  most  formidable  danger  that  threat 
ens  the  republic  to-day  is  the  spirit  of  law-breaking  which 
shows  itself  in  many  turbulent  and  alarming  manifestations. 
The  people  of  the  Pacific  Coast,  after  two  years  of  wrestling 


OBEDIENCE    TO  LAW  BY  CONGRESS.  729 

with  Communism  in  the  city  of  San  Francisco,  have  finally  grap 
pled  with  this  lawless  spirit,  and  the  leader  of  it  was  yesterday 
sentenced  to  penal  servitude  as  a  violator  of  the  law.  But  what 
can  we  say  to  Dennis  Kearney  and  his  associates,  if  to-day  we 
announce  ourselves  the  foremost  law-breakers  of  the  country, 
and  set  an  example  for  all  the  turbulent  and  vicious  elements  of 
disorder  to  follow? 

I  ask  gentlemen  whether  this  is  a  time  when  it  is  safe  to  dis 
regard  and  weaken  the  authority  of  law.  In  all  quarters,  the 
civil  society  of  this  country  is  becoming  honeycombed  through 
and  through  by  disintegrating  forces :  in  some  States  by  the 
violation  of  contracts  and  the  repudiation  of  debts ;  in  others, 
by  open  resistance  and  defiance ;  in  still  others,  by  the  reckless 
overturning  of  constitutions,  and  letting  "  the  red  fool-fury  of 
the  Seine "  run  riot  among  our  people  and  build  its  blazing 
altars  to  the  strange  gods  of  misrule  and  ruin.  All  these  things 
are  shaking  the  good  order  of  society  and  threatening  the  foun 
dations  of  our  government  and  our  peace.  In  a  time  like  this, 
more  than  ever  before,  this  country  needs  a  body  of  lawgivers 
clothed  and  in  their  right  minds,  who  will  lay  their  hands  upon 
the  altar  of  the  law  as  its  defenders,  not  its  destroyers.  And 
yet  now,  in  the  name  of  party,  for  some  supposed  party  advan 
tage,  my  colleague  announces,  and  no  one  on  his  side  has 
said  him  nay,  that  they  not  only  have  not  in  the  past  obeyed, 
but  in  the  future  they  will  not  obey,  this  law  of  the  land  which 
the  Supreme  Court  has  just  crowned  with  the  authority  of 
its  sanction.  If  my  colleague  chooses  to  meet  that  issue,  if 
he  chooses  to  go  to  the  country  with  that  plea,  I  shall  regret 
it  deeply  for  my  country's  sake;  but  if  I  looked  only  to  my 
party's  interest,  it  would  give  me  joy  to  engage  in  such  a  strug 
gle.  The  contest  of  last  autumn  made  the  people  understand 
the  tendencies  of  gentlemen  on  the  other  side.  This  cool, 
calm,  deliberate  assassination  of  the  law  will  not  be  tolerated. 
We  have  had  a  winter  to  freeze  out  our  passion,  we  have  had 
a  summer  to  thaw  out  our  indifference,  we  have  had  the  chan 
ging  circles  of  the  year  to  bring  us  around  to  order  and  calm 
ness,  and  yet  all  the  stars  in  their  courses  seem  to  have  shed 
their  influence  on  my  colleague  to  fire  him  with  a  more  des 
perate  madness,  and  to  drive  his  party  on  to  a  still  sadder  fate. 
I  trust  that  we  may  yet  find  some  responses  from  the  other  side 
of  the  house  that  will  prevent  this  course  of  procedure.  If  we 


730  OBEDIENCE    TO  LAW  BY  CONGRESS. 

do,  I  will  gladly  give  away  any  party  advantage  for  the  sake  of 
strengthening  the  foundations  of  law  and  good  order.  And  I 
therefore  appeal  to  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  to  prevent  a 
disaster  which  their  party  leaders  are  preparing,  not  for  them 
selves  alone,  but  for  our  common  country.  I  hope  before  this 
day  is  over  we  may  see  such  a  vote  in  this  chamber  upon  this 
bill  as  will  put  an  end  to  this  miserable  business,  and  cast  out 
of  these  halls  the  dregs  of  that  unfortunate  and  crazy  extra 
session. 


THE  APPOINTMENT  OF  SPECIAL  DEPUTY 
MARSHALS. 

REMARKS   MADE   IN   THE   HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 
MARCH  19  AND  APRIL  23,  1880. 


IN  the  State  of  California  expenses  amounting  to  $7,600  were  incurred, 
in  the  election  of  1879,  in  the  appointment  of  special  deputy  marshals. 
Further,  one  point  in  the  Congressional  controversy  about  the  special  dep 
uty  marshals  of  elections  was  the  manner  of  their  appointment.  March 
1 8,  1880,  Mr.  Garfield  offered  the  following  as  a  substitute  for  a  propo 
sition  then  pending  :  "  For  special  deputy  marshals  of  elections,  the  sum 
of  $7,600  :  Provided,  that  hereafter  special  deputy  marshals  of  elections, 
for  performing  any  duties  in  reference  to  any  election,  shall  receive  the 
sum  of  $5  per  day  in  full  for  their  compensation ;  and  that  all  appoint 
ments  of  such  special  deputy  marshals  having  any  duties  to  perform  in 
respect  to  any  election  shall  be  made  by  the  judge  of  the  Circuit  Court 
of  the  United  States  for  the  district  in  which  such  marshals  are  to  per 
form  their  duties,  or  by  the  District  Judge  of  the  district  in  the  absence 
of  the  Circuit  Judge ;  said  special  deputies  to  be  appointed  in  equal 
numbers  from  the  different  political  parties."  The  point  here  involved 
was  whether  these  deputies  should  be  appointed  by  the  marshals,  as  the 
existing  law  said,  or  by  the  judges,  as  the  amendment  proposed.  After 
some  verbal  modification,  and  the  addition  of  a  provision  that  the  special 
deputies  should  be  persons  of  good  moral  character  and  well-known  res 
idents  of  the  voting  precinct,  the  amendment  was  added,  by  the  Demo 
cratic  majority,  to  the  Deficiency  Bill  as  a  rider.  President  Hayes 
vetoed  the  bill,  May  4,  mainly  upon  the  ground  that  "  riders  "  should 
not  be  put  upon  the  appropriation  bills.  So,  on  May  31,  this  clause  was 
added  to  the  Sundry  Civil  Appropriation  Bill :  "  For  payment  of  Mar 
shals  and  their  general  deputies,  except  for  services  of  the  latter  ren 
dered  at  elections,  $650,000."  The  $7,600  due  to  the  Marshals  of 
California  for  services  rendered  at  the  election  of  1879  has  never  been 
voted.  Mr.  Garfield  was  willing  to  vote  for  his  proposition  as  an  origi 
nal  measure,  but  refused  to  vote  for  it  as  a  rider.  He  defined  his  position 


732  SPECIAL  DEPUTY  MARSHALS. 

in  two  short  speeches,  made  on  March  19  and  April  23  respectively.  Be 
fore  giving  his  remarks,  another  phase  of  the  contest  over  the  Marshals 
should  be  presented,  and  a  remark  or  two  added  touching  the  contest  of 
which  this  was  a  part. 

The  appropriation  made  on  the  3ist  of  May  was  for  the  fiscal  year 
ending  June  30,  1880.  On  the  i4th  of  May,  Mr.  Bayard  reported  to 
the  Senate,  from  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary,  a  bill  that  dealt  with 
the  future.  This  bill,  which  was  entitled  "  An  Act  regulating  the  pay  and 
appointment  of  Deputy  Marshals,"  as  finally  passed,  provided  that  from 
and  after  its  passage  the  pay  of  all  deputy  marshals  for  services  in  ref 
erence  to  any  election  should  be  $5  for  each  day  of  actual  service,  and 
no  more,  and  then  provided  : 

"  SEC.  2.  That  all  deputy  marshals  to  serve  in  reference  to  any  elec 
tions  shall  be  appointed  by  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United  States  for 
the  district  in  which  such  marshals  are  to  perform  their  duties  in  each 
year,  and  the  judges  of  the  several  Circuit  Courts  of  the  United  States 
are  hereby  authorized  to  open  their  respective  courts  at  any  time  for  that 
purpose,  and  in  case  the  Circuit  Courts  shall  not  be  open  for  that  purpose 
at  least  ten  days  prior  to  a  registration,  if  there  be  one,  or  if  no  registra 
tion  be  required,  then  at  least  ten  days  before  the  election  the  judges  of 
the  District  Courts  of  the  United  States  are  hereby  respectively  authorized 
to  cause  their  courts  to  be  opened  for  the  purpose  of  appointing  such 
deputy  marshals,  who  shall  be  appointed  by  the  said  District  Courts,  and 
the  officers  so  appointed  shall  be  in  equal  numbers  from  the  different  po 
litical  parties,  and  shall  be  well-known  citizens,  of  good  moral  character, 
and  actual  residents  of  the  voting  precincts  in  which  their  duties  are  to 
be  performed,  and  shall  not  be  candidates  for  any  office  at  such  elec 
tion,  and  all  laws  and  parts  of  laws  inconsistent  with  this  act  are  hereby 
repealed :  Provided,  that  the  marshals  of  the  United  States  for  whom 
deputies  shall  be  appointed  by  the  courts  under  this  act  shall  not  be  lia 
ble  for  any  of  the  acts  of  such  deputies." 

This  bill  President  Hayes  vetoed,  June  15,  on  the  ground  that  it  "  failed 
to  adapt  its  provisions  to  the  existing  laws,  so  as  to  secure  efficient  super 
vision  and  protection  "  of  the  elections.  This  veto  was  the  end  of  the 
party  struggle  concerning  the  Marshals.  It  was  the  end,  also,  of  the  long 
party  struggle  over  the  army  and  the  enforcement  of  the  national  election 
laws,  which  began  soon  after  the  Democratic  party  gained  a  majority  in 
the  House  of  Representatives.1  The  Democrats  now  abandoned  the 
contest.  Each  year  the  Army  Appropriation  Bill  has  provided  for  the 
payment  and  subsistence  of  25,000  enlisted  men.  Nor  has  the  proviso 
in  the  Army  Bill  for  the  fiscal  years  1880  and  1881,  whereby  money  was 
denied  for  the  payment,  subsistence,  and  transportation  of  any  portion  of 

1  See  the  introductory  notes  to  the  speeches  entitled  "  The  Army  and  the  Public 
Peace,"  and  "  Revolution  in  Congress,"  anle,  p.  543  and  p.  655. 


SPECIAL  DEPUTY  MARSHALS.  733 

the  army  of  the  United  States  to  be  used  as  a  police  force  to  keep  the 
peace  at  the  polls  within  any  State,  called  by  Mr.  Garfield  "only a  stump 
speech,"  been  since  renewed.  The  Sundry  Civil  Expense  Bill  for  the 
year  1881  appropriated  for  "the  payment  of  United  States  Marshals  and 
their  general  deputies,  except  for  services  of  the  latter  rendered  at  elec 
tions,"  $650,000.  But  this  exception  did  not  appear  in  the  correspond 
ing  bills  for  the  years  1882  and  1883.  In  both  of  those  bills  the  appro 
priation  is  "  for  payment  of  the  fees  and  expenses  of  United  States  Mar 
shals  and  deputies." 

\  Throughout  this  long  and  heated  struggle,  Mr.  Garfield  was  in  hearty 
\  accord  with  the  Republicans  in  Congress ;  but  it  is  proper  to  say  that 
nis  proposition  to  vest  the  appointment  of  the  Special  Deputy  Mar- 
si|als  in  the  Judges  rather  than  in  the  Marshals,  submitted  March  18, 
giVen  above  and  defended  below,  was  disapproved  of  by  the  majority  of 
Republican  Representatives,  and  by  all  of  the  Republican  Senators  save 
one.  The  following  are  Mr.  Garfield's  remarks  made  on  March  19. 

ll/TR.  CHAIRMAN,  — We  are  equals  here,  each  having  rights 
-*-»-!-  equal  to  every  other,  and  nobody  having  any  authority  to 
bind  any  but  himself.  With  that  preface,  I  will  speak  for  myself. 

The  first  object  that  I  try  to  keep  before  my  mind  in  legisla 
tion  is  to  be  right.  On  this  question  of  the  election  laws,  during 
the  long  and  heated  debates  of  last  summer,  in  which  all  sorts 
of  accusations  were  made  by  gentlemen  on  the  other  side,  there 
was  made  but  one  just  criticism  of  the  existing  law  touching 
elections.  There  was  one  charge  made  by  the  other  side,  and 
in  so  far  as  it  was  true  I  consider  it  a  just  objection  to  the  law. 
It  was  that  the  law  had  been  used,  or  was  capable  of  being  used, 
to  fill  election  precincts  with  men  of  one  party  whose  time  might 
be  employed  at  the  public  expense  for  party  electioneering  pur 
poses.  I  say  in  so  far  as  that  law  can  be  so  used,  to  that  extent 
it  is  unjust;  and  at  all  times  and  on  all  proper  occasions  I  have 
declared,  and  I  now  declare,  myself  willing  to  modify  the  law  so 
that  the  alleged  abuse  cannot  take  place.  That  I  say  for  myself, 
and  will  continue  to  say  it.  No  other  valid  objection  to  this  law 
was,  in  my  judgment,  made  by  anybody  during  the  last  session 
of  this  Congress,  or  since. 

Now  what  happened?  In  the  first  place,  on  this  side  we 
objected,  and  do  still  object,  with  entire  unanimity,  to  riders  on 
appropriation  bills. 

MR.  TOWNSHEND,  of  Illinois.  Yes ;  but  you  said  yesterday  that  you 
would  vote  for  this  as  a  rider. 


734 


SPECIAL  DEPUTY  MARSHALS. 


I  hope  the  gentleman  from  Illinois  will  possess  his  soul  in 
patience.  We  did  all  in  our  power  to  prevent  any  rider  ; 
but  the  rider  was  ruled  in  order.  What  then?  I  hold  it 
always  to  be  my  duty  to  help  make  a  pending  measure,  even 
though  obnoxious,  as  decent  and  harmless  as  possible.  When 
that  is  done  in  the  present  case,  we  can,  and  doubtless  shall, 
vote  against  its  final  adoption  because  it  is  a  rider.  Yesterday, 
distinctly  disclaiming  the  right  to  speak  for  anybody  but  my 
self,  I  offered  a  substitute  for  the  proposed  amendment,  pro 
viding  that  the  special  deputy  marshals  should  have  their  pay 
fixed  at  five  dollars  a  day,  should  be  appointed  by  the  courts 
equally  from  the  different  political  parties,  so  as  to  prevent 
the  only  evil  that  can  be  justly  complained  of.  I  will  vote  to 
substitute  that  for  the  pending  proposition,  if  I  vote  alone  on 
this  or  on  both  sides  of  the  house. 

But  what  has  been  done?  Gentlemen  on  the  other  side  not 
only  did  not  accept  my  substitute,  but  voted  it  down,  and  sub 
stituted  for  it  a  proposition  containing  these  provisions:  first, 
that  the  compensation  of  these  deputy  marshals  shall  be  cut 
down  to  two  dollars  a  day;  second,  that  there  shall  never  be 
more  than  three  of  them  in  any  one  election  precinct;  and, 
third,  that  they  shall  not  be  employed  more  than  three  days, 
even  though  the  registration  under  the  law  of  the  State  lasts 
ten  days.  Now,  what  does  this  mean?  It  means  that  under 
the  pretence  of  enforcing  the  election  laws  for  scrutinizing  and 
guarding  the  polls,  though  there  may  be  a  thousand  rioters 
around  the  polls  seeking  to  break  up  the  election,  yet  there 
shall  be  but  three  men  empowered  to  keep  the  peace  of  the 
United  States  against  the  mob.  In  other  words,  the  pending 
amendment  proposes  to  make  this  law  a  notice  to  the  mob  in 
advance  to  come  and  overwhelm  the  keepers  of  the  peace,  and 
make  violence  rather  than  order  reign  at  our  national  elections. 
If  this  were  a  part  of  the  best  bill  in  the  world,  I  would  not 
vote  for  it,  because  it  cuts  the  vitals  out  of  the  law  and  makes 
its  enforcement  an  impossibility.  But  if  you  will  take  the 
naked  proposition  that  I  offered,  I  will  vote  for  it  as  a  substi 
tute,  if  I  vote  alone.  I  will  vote  for  it  as  a  betterment  of  the 
pending  amendment,  though  I  say  again  that  it  is  not  proper 
to  put  it  on  the  appropriation  bill,  but  altogether  improper. 
Yet  when  an  amendment  is  pending  I  will  vote  for  its  improve 
ment.  I  did  not  offer  my  substitute  as  a  compromise.  On  the 


SPECIAL  DEPUTY  MARSHALS.  735 

question  of  what  I  believe  just  and  right,  I  make  no  compro 
mise  anywhere ;  but  I  do  believe  that  it  strengthens  the  election 
law  to  free  it  from  every  ground  of  charge  that  it  is  partisan,  or 
can  be  used  for  merely  partisan  purposes.  I  want  the  law  to 
insure,  so  far  as  law  can  do  it,  fair,  honest,  and  peaceable  elec 
tions,  and  I  want  it  for  no  other  purpose. 


THE  second  speech  was  made  on  April  23,  and  was  a  fuller  statement 
of  his  views. 

MR.  CHAIRMAN,  —  Nothing  is  more  unfortunate  than  the 
persistent  determination  of  a  majority  of  this  House  to  tack 
"  riders "  upon  appropriation  bills,  and  thus  take  again  the 
indefensible  position  of  last  session,  that  they  will  coerce  an 
other  branch  of  the  government  to  approve  of  an  independent 
measure  in  order  to  save  the  government  supplies.  There  is 
no  valid  reason  for  not  offering  this  amendment  and  passing 
it  through  both  houses  as  an  independent  bill.  The  majority 
have  the  power  to  pass  it,  and,  if  it  is  made  free  from  ambigu 
ity,  I  have  no  doubt  it  would  receive  many  votes  on  this  side. 
But  the  majority  have  adopted  a  method  to  reach  the  result 
which  is  universally  acknowledged  to  be  bad,  and  which  they 
know  is  especially  offensive  to  the  minority.  On  this  ground 
we  are  unanimous  on  this  side  of  the  house  in  the  opinion  that 
this  amendment  ought  not  to  be  made  to  this  bill.  In  short, 
to  put  this  measure  upon  this  bill  is  a  challenge  to  an  inde- 
1  pendent  department  of  the  government  —  the  Executive  —  to 
declare  whether  he  will  consent  to  be  coerced  in  order  to 
secure  the  necessary  appropriations.  It  is  a  revival  of  the  con 
troversy  of  the  last  session,  which  ended  so  disastrously  to  the 
majority.  Experience  ought  to  have  taught  them  wisdom,  and 
led  them  to  offer  this  measure  by  itself 

I  now  ask  attention  to  the  merits  of  the  proposition  itself.  If 
the  point  made  by  the  gentleman  from  Maine1  be  good,  that 
the  language  of  this  amendment  is  such  that  its  provisions  can 
not  be  fairly  and  fully  executed,  his  objection  is  fatal  to  the 
measure.  In  my  judgment,  however,  the  pending  clause,  by 
necessary  implication,  is  a  repeal  of  a  part  of  one  of  the  sections 
of  the  election  laws,  and  hence  must  be  incorporated  with  that 

1  Mr.  Reed. 


736  SPECIAL  DEPUTY  MARSHALS. 

section,  and  be  construed  and  executed  as  a  part  of  the  whole 
body  of  those  laws ;  and  I  think  any  court  would  be  compelled 
thus  to  construe  it.  Still,  if  there  is  a  reasonable  doubt  on  that 
question,  it  is  a  good  reason  why  that  doubt  ought  to  be  re 
moved  before  the  amendment  becomes  a  law. 

Now,  I  call  attention  to  the  debate  on  another  point.  In  all 
that  has  been  said  upon  the  subject,  I  have  noticed  what  appears 
to  me  an  utter  ignoring  of  one  central  fact  in  relation  to  the 
special  deputy  marshals  created  by  the  election  law.  They  are 
a  class  of  officers  wholly  unknown  to  the  statutes  of  the  United 
States,  except  as  they  appear  in  the  election  law.  Marshals  and 
deputy  marshals  have  been  known  in  our  statutes  since  1789, 
and  their  powers  and  duties  have  been  carefully  defined ;  but 
the  office  of  special  deputy  marshal  never  existed  in  this  coun 
try  until  it  was  created,  and  its  duties  defined,  in  the  sections  of 
the  election  law  of  1871.  To  show  how  completely  this  office 
has  been  confounded  in  the  recent  debate  with  that  of  deputy 
marshal,  or  general  deputy  marshal,  as  it  is  called  by  way  of  dis 
tinction  in  the  statutes,  I  call  attention  to  Section  2021  of  the 
Revised  Statutes,  and  the  sections  immediately  following. 

The  duty  of  the  special  deputy  marshal  is  to  attend  all  places 
for  the  registration  of  voters  and  for  voting  for  members  of  Con 
gress,  and  "  to  aid  and  assist  the  supervisors  of  election  in  the  veri 
fication  of  any  list  of  persons  who  may  have  registered  or  voted." 
This  is  the  primary  and  chief  duty  of  special  deputy  marshals. 
They  are  really  assistants  of  the  supervisors,  rather  than  of  the 
marshals ;  and  the  fact  that  they  are  called  special  deputy  mar 
shals  does  not  change  the  nature  of  their  office  or  the  character 
of  their  duties.  It  is  true  that  in  the  next  section  these  officers 
are  made  conservators  of  the  peace ;  but  so  are  the  supervisors 
of  the  elections  and  many  other  officers.  But  with  this  excep 
tion  the  special  deputy  marshals  have  none  of  the  general  exec 
utive  powers  which  the  law  has  confided  to  marshals  and  their 
general  deputies.  They  have  no  authority,1  by  virtue  of  their 
appointment  as  special  deputies,  to  make  arrests  and  summon 
the  posse  comitatus  to  put  down  violence  at  the  election.  This 
they  can  do  only  when  the  Marshal,  under  his  hand  and  seal  in 
writing,  specially  empowers  them  so  to  act,  as  provided  in  Sec 
tion  2024.  But  the  general  deputy  marshals  are  required  to 
exercise  these  powers  by  virtue  of  the  office  they  hold,  as  de 
fined  by  the  law. 


SPECIAL  DEPUTY  MARSHALS.  737 

From  this  review  of  the  statutes  it  will  be  seen  that  the  chief 
duty  of  the  special  deputy  marshals  is  to  accompany  and  assist 
the  supervisors  of  elections  in  the  discharge  of  their  quasi 
judicial  duties;  that  is,  in  scrutinizing  and  verifying  the  regis 
tration  and  election,  and  detecting  any  fraud  or  attempted  fraud. 
Let  me  follow  this  subject  a  step  further. 

The  supervisor  cannot  leave  his  post  at  the  ballot-box  to  fol 
low  John  Doe  and  learn  whether  he  has  registered  or  voted 
under  a  false  name;  and  therefore  this  Section  2021  of  the 
statute  gives  the  supervisor  an  assistant,  known  as  a  special 
deputy  marshal,  who  goes  out  and  verifies  John  Doe,  and  re 
ports  the  result  of  his  investigation  to  the  supervisor.  As  this 
is  their  chief  function,  it  is  clear  that  the  special  deputy  mar 
shals,  in  their  essential  character,  are  assistant  supervisors,  and 
their  duties  partake  of  the  judicial  character  of  those  of  their 
chief.  Under  the  law  as  it  now  stands,  the  supervisors  them 
selves  are  appointed  by  the  courts,  and  from  the  different  polit 
ical  parties.  Now,  can  any  valid  reason  be  given,  on  the  merits 
of  the  case,  why  their  assistants,  whose  first  and  chief  duty  is  to 
aid  them  in  the  discharge  of  their  quasi  judicial  duties,  should 
not  also  be  appointed  by  the  courts,  as  they  themselves  are 
appointed,  without  regard  to  political  affiliation?  The  argument 
that  these  officers  should  not  be  appointed  by  the  courts  because 
they  are  under  the  orders  of  the  marshal,  falls  to  the  ground 
when  the  plain  fact  is  known  that  they  serve  the  supervisor 
rather  than  the  marshal. 

But  we  are  told  that,  if  the  special  deputies  should  be  ap 
pointed  from  different  political  parties,  there  would  be  no  unity 
of  action  among  them  in  the  execution  of  the  law.  I  am  not 
willing  to  confess,  for  I  do  not  believe  it  to  be  true,  that  this 
country  is  so  far  gone  in  debasement  and  anarchy  that  the 
fair-minded  people  in  any  Democratic  township  or  ward  can 
truthfully  say,  "  There  is  no  Republican  in  this  precinct  who 
can  be  trusted  to  aid  in  executing  the  election  law,"  or  that 
they  will  in  any  Republican  community  say,  "  There  is  no  Dem 
ocrat  in  all  the  borders  of  this  precinct  whom  we  can  trust  to 
help  carry  out  a  fair  election  law."  When  I  am  compelled  to 
believe  this,  I  shall  say  that  my  country  is  no  longer  capable  of 
self-government,  is  no  longer  worthy  of  freedom. 

Our  laws  provide  for  summoning  the  posse  comitatus  as  the 
extreme  civil  remedy  for  suppressing  disorder  and  keeping  the 

VOL.  ii.  47 


738  SPECIAL  DEPUTY  MARSHALS. 

peace.  What  is  the  posse  comitatus  but  the  whole  body  of 
bystanders,  —  men  of  all  political  parties?  The  theory  of  our 
government  is,  that,  in  the  last  civil  resort,  we  summon  all  men 
without  distinction  of  party  to  act  as  conservators  of  the  peace. 
If  the  bystanders,  without  distinction  of  party,  can  be  trusted 
to  perform  this  important  duty,  surely  we  can  trust  such  as  the 
courts,  on  their  high  responsibility,  shall  appoint  to  aid  in  secur 
ing  a  fair  election.  It  ought  constantly  to  be  remembered  that 
no  one  of  these  special  deputy  marshals  has  any  power  to  put 
down  a  riot  at  the  polls,  unless  the  marshal,  under  his  hand  and 
seal,  in  writing,  shall  specially  empower  such  special  deputy  to 
do  that  thing;  and  let  it  also  be  remembered  that  this  amend 
ment  in  no  way  interferes  with  the  power  of  the  marshal  to 
appoint  as  many  general  deputy  marshals  as  may  be  needed  to 
suppress  disorder. 

I  hope  I  am  not  altogether  a  dreamer,  forgetful  of  practical 
necessities,  but  I  have  never  been  able  to  see  why  this  measure 
cannot  be  executed  fully,  thoroughly,  and  justly,  provided  its 
language  makes  it  a  part  of  the  election  law.  My  friend  from 
Maine  has  raised  some  doubt  on  that  point,  and  in  so  far  as  that 
doubt  is  justified,  it  is  a  fair  argument  against  the  clause.  But 
we  should  look  beyond  the  mere  word  of  the  amendment  to  the 
objects  of  national  good  it  may  be  made  to  accomplish.  I  care 
but  little  for  it  as  a  mere  settlement  of  a  present  party  con 
troversy. 

No  thoughtful  man  can  fail  to  see  great  danger  in  a  close  and 
bitterly  contested  national  election.  In  common  with  my  party 
associates,  I  believe  that  these  election  laws  are  great  and  be 
neficent  safeguards  to  the  fair  and  free  expression  of  the  national 
will.  Now,  if  the  adoption  of  a  measure  like  this  will  harness 
the  two  great  political  parties  to  these  election  laws,  by  the 
bonds  of  common  consent  and  mutual  co-operation  for  their 
enforcement,  it  will  be  a  benefit  that  will  far  outweigh  any  slight 
advantage  that  can  be  gained  by  retaining  wholly  within  our 
party  the  appointment  of  a  few  officers  to  aid  the  supervisors. 
I  believe  this  measure  will  not  weaken,  but  will  strengthen,  the 
authority  of  the  election  laws,  and  will  remove  from  them  the 
only  reasonable  ground  of  complaint  that  the  other  side  have 
made  against  them.  I  resist  the  amendment  only  because  it  is 
a  rider  which  should  not  be  a  part  of  the  appropriation  bill;  but 
as  a  measure  by  itself,  clearly  and  plainly  drawn,  I  will  cordially 


SPECIAL  DEPUTY  MARSHALS.  739 

support  it.  I  agree  that  ours  is  a  party  government,  and  I 
believe  in  parties,  especially  my  own;  but  when  we  come  to 
the  ballot-box,  where  citizens  of  all  parties  meet  to  enjoy  the 
highest  rights  of  freemen,  all  parties  should  unite  in  enforcing 
these  just  and  necessary  laws,  designed  to  secure  free,  fair,  and 
peaceable  national  elections  throughout  the  Union. 


NATIONAL    APPROPRIATIONS 
AND    MISAPPROPRIATIONS. 

PAPER  CONTRIBUTED   TO   THE   NORTH   AMERICAN   REVIEW, 

JUNE,  1879. 


AN  eminent  French  statesman  has  said :  "  A  nation  embod 
ies  its  spirit,  and  much  of  its  history,  in  its  financial  laws. 
Let  one  of  our  budgets  alone  survive  the  next  deluge,  and  in 
it  will  plainly  appear  all  that  we  are." 

If  our  republic  were  blotted  from  the  earth,  and  from  the 
memory  of  mankind,  and  if  no  record  of  its  history  survived, 
except  a  copy  of  our  revenue  laws  and  our  appropriation  bills 
for  a  single  year,  the  political  philosopher  would  be  able  from 
these  materials  alone  to  reconstruct  a  large  part  of  our  history, 
and  sketch  with  considerable  accuracy  the  character  and  spirit 
of  our  institutions. 

Revenue  is  not,  as  some  one  has  said,  the  friction  of  a  gov 
ernment,  but  rather  its  motive  power.  As  in  the  human  body 
every  motion  is  produced  by  an  expenditure  of  vital  force,  so 
in  government  the  exercise  of  the  smallest  function  is  accom 
panied,  or  rather  is  produced,  by  an  expenditure  of  money. 

To  collect  from  the  property  and  labor  of  a  nation  a  revenue 
sufficient  to  carry  on  the  various  departments  of  its  government, 
and  so  to  distribute  that  revenue  as  to  supply  every  part  of  the 
complicated  machinery  with  adequate  motive  power,  neither, 
on  the  one  hand,  crippling  the  resources  of  the  people  or  the 
functions  of  the  government,  nor,  on  the  other,  producing 
overgrowth  and  waste  by  lavish  expenditure,  is  one  of  the  most 
difficult  and  delicate  problems  of  modern  statesmanship.  And 
this  problem  presents  itself  every  year  under  new  conditions. 
An  adjustment  which  is  wise  and  equitable  for  one  year  may  be 
wholly  inadequate  for  the  next. 


NATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS.  741 

[The  next  two  and  a  half  pages  of  this  paper  were  in  substance,  and 
almost  in  form,  a  reproduction  of  the  first  pages  of  the  Speech  entitled 
"Public  Expenditures,  their  Increase  and  Diminution,"  made  January 
23,  1872,  and  are  here  omitted.1] 

From  the  foregoing  [the  omitted  pages]  it  will  be  seen  that 
two  forces  have  been  in  constant  action  in  determining  the 
tendency  of  appropriations  while  the  nation  was  passing  from 
war  to  peace :  first,  the  normal  increase  of  ordinary  expenses, 
dependent  upon  increase  of  population  and  extension  of  settled 
territory ;  and,  second,  the  decrease  caused  by  the  payment  of 
war  obligations.  The  decrease  due  to  the  latter  cause  is  greater 
immediately  after  a  war  than  the  increase  due  to  the  former ; 
but  the  normal  increase,  being  a  constant  element,  will  finally 
overcome  the  decrease  caused  by  the  payment  of  war  debts, 
and  a  point  will  be  reached  from  which  the  annual  expenditures 
will  again  increase. 

In  a  speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  Janu 
ary  23,  1872,  I  undertook  to  estimate  the  reduction  that  could 
be  made  in  our  expenditures,  and  to  forecast  the  date  at  which 
a  farther  reduction  of  the  annual  amount  would  cease.  I  ven 
ture  to  quote  a  few  paragraphs  from  that  speech,  both  as  an 
illustration  of  the  operations  of  the  law  of  expenditure,  and 
of  the  risks  one  takes  who  ventures  a  prediction  on  such  a 
subject. 

"Throughout  our  history  there  may  be  seen  a  curious  uniformity 
in  the  movement  of  the  annual  expenditures  for  the  years  immediately 
following  a  war.  We  have  not  the  data  to  determine  how  long  it  was 
after  the  War  of  Independence  before  the  expenditures  ceased  to  de 
crease,  that  is,  before  they  reached  the  point  where  their  natural  growth 
more  than  balanced  the  tendency  to  reduction  of  war  expenditure  ;  but 
in  the  years  immediately  following  all  our  subsequent  wars,  the  decrease 
has  continued  for  a  period  almost  exactly  twice  the  length  of  the  war 
itself.  After  the  war  of  1812  to  1815  the  expenditures  continued  to 
decline  for  eight  years,  reaching  the  lowest  point  in  1823.  After  the 
Seminole  war,  which  ran  through  three  years,  1836,  1837,  and  1838,  the 
new  level  was  not  reached  until  1844,  six  years  after  its  close.  After 
the  Mexican  war,  which  lasted  two  years,  it  took  four  years,  until  1852, 
to  reach  the  level  of  peace. 

"  It  is  perhaps  unsafe  to  base  our  calculations  for  the  future  on  these 
analogies ;  but  the  wars  already  referred  to  have  been  of  such  varied 

1  See  ante,  page  I. 


742  NATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS. 

character,  and  their  financial  effects  have  been  so  uniform,  as  to  make 
it  not  unreasonable  to  expect  that  a  similar  result  will  follow  our  late 
war.  If  so,  the  decrease  of  our  ordinary  expenditures,  exclusive  of  the 
principal  and  interest  of  the  public  debt,  will  continue  until  1875  or 
1876. 

"  It  will  be  seen  by  an  analysis  of  our  current  expenditures  that, 
exclusive  of  charges  on  the  public  debt,  nearly  fifty  million  dollars  are 
expenditures  directly  for  the  late  war.  Many  of  these  expenditures  will 
not  appear  again,  such  as  the  bounty  and  back  pay  of  volunteer  soldiers, 
and  payment  for  illegal  captures  of  British  vessels  and  cargoes.  We 
may  reasonably  expect  that  the  expenditures  for  pensions  will  hereafter 
steadily  decrease,  unless  our  legislation  should  be  unwarrantably  extrav 
agant.  We  may  also  expect  a  large  decrease  in  expenditures  for  the 
internal  revenue  department.  Possibly,  we  may  ultimately  be  able  to 
abolish  the  department  altogether.  In  the  accounting  and  disbursing 
bureaus  of  the  Treasury  Department,  we  may  also  expect  a  further 
reduction  of  the  force  now  employed  in  settling  war  claims. 

"  We  cannot  expect  so  rapid  a  reduction  of  the  public  debt  and  its 
burden  of  interest  as  we  have  witnessed  for  the  last  three  years ;  but  the 
reduction  will  doubtless  continue,  and  the  burden  of  interest  will  con 
stantly  decrease.  I  know  it  is  not  safe  to  attempt  to  forecast  the  future  ; 
but  I  venture  to  express  the  belief  that,  if  peace  continues,  the  year  1876 
will  witness  our  ordinary  expenditures  reduced  to  $135,000,000,  and  the 
interest  on  our  public  debt  to  $95,000,000;  making  our  total  ex 
penditures,  exclusive  of  payment  on  the  principal  of  the  public  debt, 
$230,000,000.  Judging  from  our  own  experience,  and  from  that  of 
other  nations,  we  may  not  hope  thereafter  to  reach  a  lower  figure." 

Reviewing  the  subject  in  the  light  of  subsequent  experience, 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  progress  of  reduction  of  expenditures 
from  the  war  level  has  been  very  nearly  in  accordance  with 
these  expectations  of  seven  years  ago.  The  actual  expendi 
tures  since  the  war,  including  interest  on  the  public  debt,  as 
shown  by  the  official  record,  were  as  follows :  — 


1865 $1,297,555,224.41 

1866 520,809,416.99 

1867 357,542,675.16 

1868 377,340,284.86 

1869 322,865,277.80 

1870 3°9>653>56o-75 

1871 292,177,188.25 


1872 $277,517,962.67 

1873 290,345,245-33 

1874 287,133,873.76 

1875 274,623,392.84 

1876 258,459,797.33 

1877 238,660,008.93 

1878 236,964,326.80 


Omitting  the  first  of  these  years,  in  which  the  enormous 
payments  to  the  army  swelled  the  aggregate  of  expenses  to 
$1,297,000,000,  and  beginning  with  the  first  full  year  after  the 


NATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS.,  743 

termination  of  the  war,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  expenditures 
have  been  reduced,  at  first  very  rapidly,  and  then  more  slowly, 
from  $520,000,000,  in  1866,  to  about  $237,000,000,  in  1878. 
The  estimate  quoted  above  was,  that  in  1876  expenditures  would 
be  reduced  to  $230,000,000,  including  $95,000,000  for  interest 
on  the  public  debt.  In  1877,  one  year  later  than  the  estimated 
date,  the  expenditures  were  $238,000,000,  including  $97,000,000 
for  interest  on  the  public  debt.  It  is  evident  that  in  1877  we 
had  very  nearly  reached  the  limit  of  possible  reduction,  for  the 
aggregate  expenditures  of  1878  show  a  reduction  below  that  of 
the  preceding  year  of  less  than  $2,000,000;  and  the  expendi 
tures,  actual  and  estimated,  for  the  current  year  ending  June 
30,  1879,  are  $240,000,000.  It  thus  appears  that  1878  was  the 
turning-point  from  which,  under  the  influence  of  the  elements 
of  normal  growth,  we  may  expect  a  constant,  though  it  ought 
to  be  a  small,  annual  increase  of  expenditures.  But  if  the  ap 
propriations  for  1880,  most  of  which  have  already  been  made, 
are  to  be  taken  as  an  index  of  the  future  policy  to  be  pursued 
by  Congress,  we  are  to  see  a  sudden,  capricious,  and  danger 
ously  large  increase. 

It  has  been  a  slow  and  difficult  work  to  force  down  the  scale 
of  expenditures  made  necessary  by  the  war.  Even  as  late  as 
1874,  more  than  fifty  per  cent  of  all  the  payments  over  the 
national  counter  were  made  to  meet  war  debts.  Besides  these 
payments,  a  large  increase  of  ordinary  expenses  was  made 
necessary  by  the  war.  From  1860  to  1865,  the  harbors,  light 
houses,  and  other  public  works  in  the  States  that  went  into 
rebellion,  were  of  course  wholly  neglected  by  the  national  gov 
ernment.  To  restore,  preserve,  and  place  them  again  in  a  state 
of  efficiency,  has  required  unusually  large  expenditures  since 
the  war.  Several  new  bureaus,  such  as  that  for  assessing  and 
collecting  internal  revenue,  and  that  for  engraving  and  printing 
the  public  securities,  have  been  created ;  and  a  large  increase 
of  force  in  the  several  executive  departments  has  been  made 
necessary,  to  enable  the  government  to  audit  the  accounts  and 
disburse  the  vast  payments. made  necessary  by  the  war. 

In  its  relation  to  good  government,  the  amount  of  expendi 
ture  authorized  by  law  is  not  so  important  as  the  methods 
adopted  by  Congress  for  regulating  the  appropriation  and  dis 
bursement  of  revenues.  In  the  early  history  of  the  govern 
ment,  all  appropriations  for  the  year  were  made  in  one  bill, 


744  RATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS. 

and  in  gross  sums,  to  be  expended  by  the  several  executive 
departments.  Though  the  number  of  leading  officers  in  each 
department  was  fixed  by  general  statute,  yet  large  discretion 
was  given  to  the  heads  of  departments,  both  in  reference  to  the 
number  of  subordinates  to  be  employed  and  to  the  special  items 
of  expenditure. 

In  his  annual  message  of  December  8,  1801,  Mr.  Jefferson 
called  attention  to  the  careless  methods  of  appropriation  which 
had  been  adopted  by  Congress,  mentioning  the  fact  that  many 
clerks  were  employed,  and  their  salaries  fixed,  at  the  discretion 
of  .the  executive  departments ;  and  he  urged  upon  Congress 
"  the  expediency  of  regulating  that  power  by  law,  so  as  to  sub 
ject  its  exercise  to  legislative  inspection  and  sanction."  In  the 
following  paragraph  of  that  message,  the  necessity  of  Con 
gressional  control  and  limitation  of  appropriations,  both  as  to 
amount  and  object,  is  admirably  stated :  — 

"  It  would  be  prudent  to  multiply  barriers  against  their  dissipation, 
by  appropriating  specific  sums  to  every  specific  purpose  susceptible  of 
definition ;  by  disallowing  all  applications  of  money  varying  from  the 
appropriation  in  object,  or  transcending  it  in  amount ;  by  reducing  the 
undefined  field  of  contingencies,  and  thereby  circumscribing  discretion 
ary  powers  over  money ;  and  by  bringing  back  to  a  single  department 
all  accountabilities  for  money,  where  the  examination  may  be  prompt, 
efficacious,  and  uniform."  1 

These  wise  suggestions  were  not  adopted  by  Congress  at  that 
time,  and  the  loose  method  of  appropriating  in  bulk  was  con 
tinued  for  many  years. 

Until  a  recent  date,  Congress  frequently  empowered  the 
President  to  order  transfers  of  appropriations  from  one  branch 
of  the  service  to  another.  But  this  power  was  usually  con 
ferred  for  a  limited  time  only.  Occasionally  a  special  bill  was 
passed,  making  appropriations  for  a  particular  branch  of  the 
service ;  but  in  the  main,  during  the  first  forty  years  of  our  his 
tory,  the  appropriations  were  made  in  one  act,  entitled  "  An  Act 
making  Appropriations  for  the  support  of  the  Government." 

In  1823  the  appropriations  for  fortifications  were  placed  in  a 
separate  bill.  In  1826  the  appropriations  for  pensions  were 
made  in  a  separate  bill.  The  first  separate  act  for  rivers  and 
harbors  appeared  in  1828,  and  in  1844  the  Post-Office  and  Defi 
ciency  Bills  were  first  passed  as  separate  acts. 

1  Jefferson's  Works,  Vol.  VIII.  pp.  10,  II. 


NATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS.  745 

In  1847  the  appropriations  were  made  in  nine  separate  bills: 
Pensions,  Fortifications,  Indian,  Military  Academy,  Army,  Navy, 
Post-Office,  Civil  and  Diplomatic,  and  Deficiency. 

In  1856  the  consular  and  diplomatic  appropriations  were 
embodied  in  a  separate  bill.  In  1857  the  Legislative,  Executive, 
and  Judicial  Bill  first  appeared  in  the  form  which  is  still  main 
tained.  In  1862  a  new  bill  was  added,  which  has  since  been 
known  as  the  Sundry  Civil  Bill,  containing  the  various  miscel 
laneous  items  not  embraced  in  the  other  bills. 

Since  1862  there  have  been  twelve  regular  annual  appropria 
tion  bills,  as  follows:  Pensions,  Legislative,  Executive,  and  Judi 
cial,  Consular  and  Diplomatic,  Army,  Navy,  Military  Academy, 
Post-Office,  Fortifications,  Indian,  Sundry  Civil,  Deficiency,  and 
Rivers  and  Harbors. 

In  addition  to  these  are  the  various  relief  acts  making  special 
appropriations.  There  is  also  a  class  of  permanent  appropria 
tions  authorized  by  general  statute,  which  do  not  appear  in  the 
annual  bills,  such  as  payments  of  interest  on  the  public  debt, 
and  payments  on  account  of  the  sinking  fund. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing,  that,  on  the  whole,  there 
has  been  an  increasing  tendency  to  limit  the  discretion  of  the 
executive  departments  and  bring  the  details  of  expenditure 
more  immediately  under  the  annual  supervision  of  Congress; 
and  this  tendency  has  been  specially  manifest  since  the  late 
war. 

As  all  regular  appropriation  bills  originate  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  the  chief  responsibility  for  the  amounts  author 
ized,  and  for  the  measures  adopted  to  regulate  and  restrict  the 
uses  to  which  the  revenues  may  be  applied,  rests  with  that 
body. 

During  the  last  four  years  the  Democratic  party  has  had 
control  of  legislation  in  the  House ;  and  a  comparison  of  their 
management  of  this  subject  with  the  Republican  management 
which  preceded  will  not  be  without  interest.  Much  credit  is 
deservedly  due  to  the  Democrats  in  the  Forty-fourth  Congress 
for  continuing  the  work  of  reduction  which  had  been  carried 
on  by  their  Republican  predecessors  from  1865  down  to  and 
including  the  passage  of  the  appropriation  bills  for  the  fiscal 
year  ending  June  30,  1876.  On  some  subjects  of  reduction 
they  could  act  more  effectively  and  with  less  embarrassment 
than  their  Republican  predecessors.  They  were  less  restrained 


746  NATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS. 

by  party  associations  from  reducing  the  official  force  in  the 
departments. 

The  aggregate  reduction  of  expenditures  made  by  the 
Forty-fourth  Congress  for  the  fiscal  years  1877  and  1878  was 
$20,000,000.  This  includes  all  the  reductions  made  by  the 
executive  departments,  as  well  as  those  made  by  Congress. 
An  apparent  though  not  real  reduction  of  $1,500,000  was 
made  by  a  change  in  the  law  relating  to  official  postage-stamps. 
The  last  Republican  House  appropriated  that  sum  for  official 
postage  for  the  several  executive  departments,  charging  the 
amount  to  the  departments  as  an  expenditure,  and  crediting 
the  Post-Office  Department  with  the  face  value  of  the  stamps. 
This  exhibited  the  whole  transaction  on  one  side  of  the  ledger 
as  revenue,  and  on  the  other  as  expenditure.  The  Forty-fourth 
Congress  repealed  that  law,  and  authorized  the  departments  to 
make  requisitions  upon  the  Postmaster-General  for  stamps,  thus 
making  an  apparent  reduction  of  $1,500,000,  without  changing 
the  actual  facts  in  the  case. 

But  the  progress  made  in  the  direction  of  economy  by  the 
Forty-fourth  Congress  was  far  more  than  neutralized  by  the 
action  of  the  last  Congress.  This  will  appear  from  a  statement 
of  the  appropriations  made  during  each  of  the  four  years  of 
Democratic  rule  in  the  House.  Omitting  permanent  appropri 
ations,  which  do  not  appear  in  the  annual  bills,  the  appropria 
tions  voted  during  the  last  four  years  were  as  follows :  — 

For  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1877,  $124,122,010. 

For  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1878,  $114,069, 483.* 

For  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1879,  $146,304,309. 

For  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1880,  $161,808,934. 

To  this  last  amount  should  be  added  $16,500,000,  authorized 
by  law  at  the  last  session  but  yet  to  be  appropriated,  to  pay  the 
arrears  of  pensions,  which  will  swell  the  amount  of  the  appro 
priations  authorized  for  the  next  fiscal  year  to  $178,300,000. 
Even  this  large  amount  must  be  further  increased  by  the  defi 
ciencies  which  will  be  required  for  that  year.  The  appropria 
tions  authorized  at  the  last  session,  not  including  these  defi 
ciencies,  exceed  by  $64,000,000  the  amount  voted  at  the  last 
session  of  the  Forty-fourth  Congress,  and  considerably  exceed 
those  of  any  year  since  1869.  Of  course,  the  arrears  of  pen 
sions,  which  are  estimated  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to 
1  No  appropriations  for  rivers  and  harbors  were  made  for  this  year.' 


NATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS. 


747 


amount  to  $41,500,000,  will  not  appear  in  the  yearly  expendi 
ture  hereafter ;  but  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  estimates  that 
the  application  of  this  law  to  all  new  pensions  hereafter  allowed 
will  increase  the  annual  Pension  Bill  four  or  five  millions  each 
year  for  some  years  to  come. 

As  I  have  already  shown,  it  would  not  have  been  reasonable 
to  expect  that  the  last  Congress  could  continue  to  make  reduc 
tions  in  the  aggregate  expenditures ;  but  the  increased  amounts 
which  have  been  authorized  greatly  exceed  the  limits  of  just 
economy. 

In  striking  contrast  with  this  increase  of  expenditures  by 
Congress  is  the  remarkable  reduction  of  annual  expenditures 
effected  by  the  refunding  operations  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury.  Since  the  1st  of  March,  1877,  the  Secretary  has 
sold  four  per  cent  bonds  and  four  per  cent  certificates  to  the 
amount  of  $803,095,700,  and  has  redeemed  and  cancelled  a 
like  amount  of  six  per  cent  and  five  per  cent  bonds,  thereby 
reducing  the  annual  coin  interest  on  the  public  debt  by  the  sum 
of  $13,638,651.  This  reduction  was  made  possible  by  the  legis 
lation  which  brought  resumption  of  specie  payments,  and  has 
greatly  strengthened  the  public  credit  at  home  and  abroad. 

Important  as  are  the  amounts  expended  for  the  public  service, 
the  legislative  methods  of  making  and  regulating  appropriations 
are  perhaps  even  more  important.  I  shall  notice  some  of  these, 
and  also  the  efforts  that  have  been  made  to  reform  them. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  government  there  has  been  a 
tendency  on  the  part  of  Congress  to  neglect  that  clause  of  the 
Constitution  which  declares  that  no  money  shall  be  drawn  from 
the  Treasury  but  in  consequence  of  appropriations  made  by 
law.  This  provision  has  been  evaded  by  appropriating,  for  a 
given  object,  so  much  money  as  may  be  necessary,  leaving  the 
amount  indefinite,  and  to  be  determined  by  the  discretion  of  the 
executive  departments.  It  was  possibly  not  the  purpose  of 
the  framers  of  the  Constitution  to  compel  Congress  to  act  annu 
ally  on  all  necessary  appropriations.  The  only  express  limit  in 
this  direction  was  placed  upon  appropriations  to  raise  and  sup 
port  armies,  which  should  not  be  for  a  period  longer  than  two 
years.  As  early  as  April  25,  1808,  Congress  passed  an  act 
appropriating  an  annual  sum  of  $200,000  to  provide  arms  and 
military  equipments  for  the  militia  of  the  United  States ;  and 
this  law  has  been  the  only  authority  for  the  expenditures  which 


748  NATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS. 

have  been  made  annually  on  that  account  ever  since.  If  one 
appropriation  may  be  made  to  run  for  seventy  years  without 
the  supervision  of  Congress,  the  same  method  might  be  applied 
to  all  other  appropriations  except  those  for  the  army.  The 
general  rule  of  good  government  requires  Congress  annually  to 
supervise  all  its  appropriations.  One  exception  is  properly 
made  to  this  rule.  The  payment  of  the  interest  on  the  public 
debt  is  made  in  pursuance  of  a  permanent  appropriation,  in 
order  that  the  public  credit  may  not  suffer  from  the  neglect  of 
Congress  to  make  provision  promptly,  each  year,  for  this  class 
of  obligations. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  it  was  found  that  more  than  one  half 
of  all  our  expenditures  were  authorized  by  general  and  perma 
nent  laws,  and  did  not  come  under  the  annual  scrutiny  of 
Congress.  Prior  to  the  act  of  March  3,  1849,  the  expenses  of 
collecting  the  revenue  from  customs  were  paid  out  of  the  gross 
receipts,  and  only  the  balance  was  paid  into  the  Treasury.  The 
act  of  1849  was  intended  to  correct  this  vicious  method,  which 
offered  so  many  opportunities  for  abuse.  It  required  the  gross 
receipts  from  customs  to  be  paid  into  the  Treasury,  and  esti 
mates  to  be  submitted  to  Congress  for  the  expense  of  collect 
ing  the  revenues.  By  the  act  of  June  14,  1858,  a  backward 
step  was  taken.  A  permanent  semiannual  appropriation  of 
$1,800,000  was  authorized,  and  authority  was  given  to  collectors 
to  apply  certain  customs  fees  directly  to  pay  the  cost  of  collec 
tion.  This  unwise  method  of  appropriation  still  continues ;  but 
since  1861  Congress  has  placed  many  restrictions  upon  the  dis 
cretion  of  collectors  and  other  customs  officers,  by  regulating 
the  number  and  salaries  of  employees. 

The  Internal  Revenue  Bureau,  established  in  1862,  has  been 
supported  by  annual  appropriations  made  on  detailed  estimates, 
presented  to  Congress  in  the  regular  way.  Prior  to  the  passage 
of  the  act  of  June  20,  1874,  the  expenses  of  the  issuing,  reissu 
ing,  transferring,  redemption,  and  destruction  of  securities  of 
the  United  States  were  paid  from  the  permanent  appropriation 
of  one  per  cent  of  all  securities  issued  during  each  fiscal  year. 
Some  years  these  expenditures  amounted  to  $3,000,000,  no  part 
of  which  came  under  the  previous  scrutiny  of  Congress.  By 
the  act  of  June  20,  1874,  all  appropriations  for  that  service  were 
placed  in  the  annual  bills  on  regular  estimates  sent  to  Congress. 
Under  the  act  of  March  31,  1849,  an  indefinite  appropriation 


NATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS. 


749 


was  made  to  pay  for  horses,  vessels,  and  other  property  lost  in 
the  military  service  under  impressment  or  contract ;  and  large 
sums  have  been  expended  which  do  not  appear  in  the  annual 
bills.  By  the  act  of  July  12,  1870,  Congress  attempted  to  repeal 
these  permanent  appropriations,  and  require  estimates  to  be 
submitted  for  them ;  but  the  old  law  appears  by  some  blunder 
to  have  been  re-enacted  in  the  revised  statutes. 

Prior  to  1872,  an  appropriation  once  authorized  by  Congress 
remained  on  the  books  of  the  Treasury  as  a  continuous  appro 
priation,  subject  to  be  drawn  upon  at  anytime.  The  result  was 
that  the  unexpended  balances  of  one  year  could  be  drawn 
against  for  subsequent  years ;  and  these  balances  so  accumu 
lated  in  all  the  bureaus  and  departments  that  in  the  course  of 
years  they  constituted  a  large  and  forgotten  fund,  which  could 
be  used  for  a  great  variety  of  purposes  without  the  special  notice 
of  Congress.  In  a  single  bureau  it  was  found  that  the  unex 
pended  balances,  the  accumulations  of  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
amounted  in  1870  to  $36,000,000. 

By  a  provision  of  law,  offered  by  Mr.  Dawes,  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Appropriations,  and  approved  July  12,  1870,  it 
was  enacted  that  all  balances  of  appropriations  contained  in  the 
annual  bills,  and  made  specifically  for  the  service  of  any  fiscal 
year,  and  remaining  unexpended  at  its  close,  shall  be  applied 
only  to  the  payment  of  expenses  incurred  during  the  year,  or 
to  the  fulfilment  of  contracts  properly  made  within  that  year. 
And  balances  not  needed  for  such  purposes  shall  be  carried  to 
the  surplus  fund,  and  at  the  end  of  two  years  from  the  date  of 
the  law  by  which  they  were  authorized  shall  be  covered  into  the 
Treasury.  In  carrying  this  law  into  effect,  two  years  afterward, 
over  $174,000,000  of  accumulated  unexpended  balances  were 
covered  into  the  Treasury  at  one  time,  and  the  temptation  to 
extravagance  which  this  great  fund  had  offered  was  removed. 
By  an  act  of  June  20,  1874,  the  law  was  made  still  more  strin 
gent,  and  the  old  abuses  which  grew  out  of  unexpended  bal 
ances  may  be  said  to  have  been  wholly  suppressed. 

In  the  same  connection  should  be  noticed  a  legislative  device 
which  has  often  been  employed  to  cover  up  the  actual  amount  of 
appropriations,  under  clauses  by  which  unexpended  balances  are 
reappropriated  without  specifying  the  amount.  The  act  of  1870 
greatly  reduced  the  scope  of  this  pernicious  habit.  But  indefi 
nite  reappropriations  by  Congress  of  balances  which,  under  the 


750  NATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS. 

law  of  1870  and  1874,  cannot  be  used  without  renewed  authority, 
have  recently  reappeared  in  our  annual  bills.  The  just  and  safe 
method  is  to  appropriate  specifically  the  expenditures  which 
Congress  is  willing  to  authorize,  so  that  the  law  shall  itself  show, 
as  far  as  possible,  both  the  object  and  the  full  amount  of  the 
appropriation. 

One  of  the  vicious  party  devices  too  often  resorted  to  for 
avoiding  responsibility  for  extravagance  in  appropriations  is  to 
cut  down  the  annual  bills  below  the  actual  amount  necessary  to 
carry  on  the  government,  announce  to  the  country  that  a  great 
reduction  has  been  made  in  the  interest  of  economy,  and,  after 
the  elections  are  over,  make  up  the  necessary  amounts  by  defi 
ciency  bills.  This  device  has  not  been  confined  to  any  one  party ; 
for  it  requires  not  a  little  courage  to  make  increased  appropria 
tions  just  before  a  Congressional  election.  But  it  is  due  to  the 
Republican  party  to  say  that,  during  the  last  few  years  of  their 
control  in  the  House,  the  deficiency  bills  were  smaller  in  the 
amounts  appropriated  than  in  any  recent  period  of  our  history, 
having  been  reduced  to  $4,000,000  for  the  fiscal  year  1875, 
$2,387,000  for  the  year  1876,  and  $834,000  for  1877,  —  the  last 
year  for  which  the  Republicans  made  the  appropriations.  This 
last  sum  was  the  smallest  amount  of  deficiency  in  any  year  for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

In  contrast  with  this  statement  is  the  fact  that,  in  the  first  year 
for  which  the  Democratic  House  managed  the  appropriations, 
the  deficiencies  were  $2,500,000;  the  second  year,  $15,213,000; 
and  for  the  third  (the  current  fiscal  year),  $3,500,000  of  de 
ficiencies  have  already  been  appropriated,  and  a  large  deficiency 
must  yet  be  provided  for. 

Notwithstanding  all  the  efforts  that  have  been  made  to  specify 
and  limit  the  objects  of  appropriations,  the  custom  prevailed 
until  1874  of  appropriating  considerable  sums  to  each  depart 
ment  under  the  head  of  "  Contingent  Expenses,"  the  disburse 
ment  of  which  was  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  heads  of  bureaus 
and  executive  departments.  But  in  one  of  the  annual  bills  of 
1874  all  these  appropriations  were  carefully  classified;  and  def 
inite  amounts  were  granted  for  different  specific  purposes,  so 
that  the  sums  left  to  be  expended  at  the  discretion  of  bureaus 
of  departments  were  greatly  reduced.  This  practice  has  since 
been  followed  in  making  up  the  annual  bills. 

In  further  illustration  of  reckless  methods  of  appropriation, 


NATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS.  751 

I  cite  two  items  in  the  legislation  of  Congress  at  the  last 
session. 

By  the  act  of  July  19,  1848,  three  months'  extra  pay  was 
granted  to  the  officers  and  soldiers  of  our  volunteer  army  who 
were  engaged  in  the  war  with  Mexico,  the  purpose  of  the  act 
being  to  pay  each  such  soldier,  on  his  discharge  from  the  army, 
a  sum  necessary  to  cover  the  time  that  it  would  be  likely  to  take 
him  to  return  home  and  secure  employment.  About  $50,000 
of  this  extra  pay  is  still  due,  and  a  bill  was  introduced  to  appro 
priate  a  sufficient  amount  of  money  to  complete  the  payment. 
An  amendment  was  added  to  the  bill,  which  so  enlarged  the 
provisions  of  the  original  act  of  1848  as  to  grant  three  months' 
extra  pay  to  all  officers  and  soldiers  of  the  regular  army,  and 
all  officers,  petty  officers,  seamen,  and  marines  of  the  navy  and 
revenue  marine  service,  who  were  at  any  time  employed  in  the 
prosecution  of  the  Mexican  war.  This  gratuity  had  never  been 
asked  for,  and  the  provision  probably  passed  without  much 
notice  of  its  real  character.  As  estimated  by  the  accounting 
officers  of  the  Treasury  Department,  the  amount  appropriated 
by  this  act,  thus  enlarged,  is  $3,500,000,  while  the  sum  actually 
due  was  only  $50,000. 

The  other  instance  marks  the  introduction  of  a  still  more  dan 
gerous  kind  of  legislation.  A  bill  was  passed  on  the  last  day  of 
the  late  session,  creating  an  irredeemable  debt  of  $250,000,  the 
annual  interest  of  which  is  to  be  paid  to  the  trustees  of  a  "  Print 
ing-House  for  the  Blind,"  at  Louisville,  Kentucky,  an  establish 
ment  chartered  by  the  State  of  Kentucky.  The  act  puts  the 
appropriation  in  the  form  of  a  national  obligation,  which  cannot 
be  repealed  without  the  repudiation  of  a  portion  of  the  public 
debt. 

Perhaps  the  most  reprehensible  method  connected  with  ap 
propriation  bills  has  resulted  from  a  change  of  one  of  the  rules 
of  the  House,  made  in  1876,  by  which  any  general  legislation 
germane  to  a  bill  may  be  in  order  if  it  retrenches  expenditures. 
The  construction  recently  given  to  this  amended  rule  has  re 
sulted  in  putting  a  great  mass  of  general  legislation  upon  the 
appropriation  bills,  and  has  so  overloaded  the  committee  in 
charge  of  them  as  to  render  it  quite  impossible  for  its  members 
to  devote  sufficient  attention  to  the  details  of  the  appropriations 
proper.  If  this  rule  be  continued  in  force,  it  will  be  likely  to 
break  down  the  Committee  on  Appropriations,  and  disperse  the 


752  NATIONAL  APPROPRIATIONS. 

annual  bills  to  several  committees,  so  that  the  legislation  on  that 
subject  will  not  be  managed  by  any  one  committee,  nor  in  ac 
cordance  with  any  general  and  comprehensive  plan. 

It  is  of  the  first  importance  that  one  strong,  intelligent  com 
mittee  should  have  supervision  of  the  whole  work  of  drafting 
and  putting  in  shape  the  bills  for  the  appropriation  of  public 
money.  That  committee  ought,  every  year,  to  present  to  Con 
gress  and  the  country  a  general  and  connected  view  of  what  we 
may  fairly  call  our  budget,  showing,  not  only  the  aggregate  of 
expenditures,  but  the  general  distribution  of  revenue  to  the 
several  objects  to  be  supported.  To  accomplish  this  work 
thoroughly  and  comprehensively  is  all  that  any  one  commit 
tee  can  do ;  and  any  attempt  to  load  general  legislation  upon 
their  bills  will  be  disastrous  not  only  to  general  legislation,  by 
making  it  fragmentary  and  incomplete,  but  especially  so  to  the 
proper  management  of  our  fiscal  affairs.  This  unwise  rule  fur 
nished  the  temptation  to  the  Democratic  caucus  to  tack  upon 
the  two  appropriation  bills  which  failed  at  the  last  session  of 
Congress  the  political  legislation  which  has  caused  the  extra 
session,  and  has  done  more  to  revive  the  unfortunate  memories 
of  the  rebellion  than  any  political  event  of  the  last  ten  years. 
The  true  policy  is  to  separate  all  financial  questions  as  far  as 
possible  from  mere  partisan  politics,  and  bring  to  their  discus 
sion  and  management  the  best  intelligence  of  all  parties. 


THE   DEMOCRATIC   PARTY  AND    PUBLIC 

OPINION. 

SPEECH    DELIVERED    IN   CLEVELAND,    OHIO, 

OCTOBER  n,  1879. 


FELLOW-CITIZENS,  — The  distinguished  gentlemen  who 
have  preceded  me  have  covered  the  ground  so  completely 
and  so  admirably  that  I  have  a  very  easy  task.  I  will  pick  up 
a  few  straws  here  and  there  over  the  broad  field,  and  ask  you 
for  a  few  moments  to  look  at  them. 

I  take  it  for  granted  that  every  thoughtful,  intelligent  man 
would  be  glad,  if  he  could,  to  be  on  the  right  side,  believing 
that  in  the  long  run  the  right  side  will  be  the  strong  side.  I 
take  it  for  granted  that  every  man  would  like  to  hold  political 
opinions  that  will  live  some  time,  if  he  could.  It  is  a  very  awk 
ward  thing  indeed  to  adopt  a  political  opinion,  and  trust  to  it, 
and  find  that  it  will  not  live  over  night.  It  would  be  an  exceed 
ingly  awkward  thing  to  go  to  bed  alone  with  your  political  doc 
trine,  trusting  and  believing  in  it,  thinking  it  is  true,  and,  waking 
up  in  the  morning,  find  it  a  corpse  in  your  arms.  I  should  be 
glad,  for  my  part,  to  hold  a  political  doctrine  that  would  live  all 
through  the  summer,  stand  the  frost,  stand  a  freeze  in  the  win 
ter,  and  come  out  alive  and  true  in  the  spring.  I  should  like  to 
adopt  a  political  doctrine  that  would  live  longer  than  my  dog. 
I  should  be  glad  to  hold  a  political  doctrine  that  would  live 
longer  than  I  shall  live,  and  that  my  children  after  me  might 
believe  in  as  true,  and  say:  "  This  doctrine  is  true  to-day,  and 
it  was  true  fifty  years  ago  when  my  father  adopted  it." 

Every  great  political  party  that  has  done  this  country  any 
good  has  given  to  it  some  immortal  ideas  that  have  outlived  all 
the  members  of  that  party.  The  old  Federal  party  gave  great, 
permanent  ideas  to  this  country,  that  are  still  alive.  The  old 
Whig  party  did  the  same.  The  old,  the  very  old  Democratic 

VOL.    II.  48 


754  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

party  did  the  same, — the  party  of  Andrew  Jackson,  Benton,  and 
Calhoun.  But  the  modern  Democratic  party  has  given  this 
country  in  the  last  twenty  years  no  idea  that  has  lived  to  be  four 
years  old.  I  mean  an  idea,  not  a  passion.  The  Democratic 
party  has  had  passions  that  have  lasted  longer  than  that.  They 
have  had  an  immortal  appetite  for  office.  That  is  just  as  strong 
to-day  as  it  was  twenty  years  ago.  Somebody  has  called  the 
Democratic  party  "  an  organized  appetite  " ;  but  that  is  not  an 
idea;  it  is  of  the  belly,  and  not  of  the  heart  nor  of  the  brain. 
I  say  again,  they  have  given  to  this  country  no  great  national 
idea  or  doctrine  that  has  lived  to  be  four  years  old;  and  if 
we  had  in  this  park,  as  in  a  great  field,  herded  together  all 
the  ideas  that  the  party  has  uttered  and  put  forth  in  the  last 
twenty  years,  there  would  not  be  found  a  four-year-old  in  the 
lot,  —  hardly  a  three-year-old,  —  hardly  a  two-year-old.  They 
have  adopted  a  doctrine  just  to  last  till  election  was  over;  if 
it  did  not  succeed,  they  have  dropped  it  to  try  another;  they 
have  tried  another  until  it  failed,  and  then  tried  another;  and 
it  has  been  a  series  of  mere  trials  to  catch  success.  When 
ever  they, have  started  in  a  campaign,  they  have  looked  at 
all  the  political  barns  to  see  how  the  tin  roosters  were  point 
ing,  to  learn  from  the  political  weathercocks  which  way  the 
wind  was  likely  to  blow ;  and  then  they  have  made  their  doc 
trines  accordingly.  This  is  no  slander  of  the  Democratic  party. 
As  my  friend,  Mr.  Foster,1  has  said,  this  is  true  not  so  much 
of  the  body  of  the  party  as  of  the  leaders.  What  a  dance 
they  have  put  the  good,  sound,  quiet,  steady-going  Democrat 
through  during  the  last  twenty  years !  They  made  him  de 
nounce  our  war  for  a  long  time;  and  then,  when  it  was  all 
over,  they  made  him  praise  it.  They  made  him  vote  with  a 
party  that  called  our  soldiers  "  Lincoln's  hirelings  "  and  "  Lin 
coln's  dogs  " ;  and  this  very  day  one  of  the  men  who  did  that 
is  parading  up  and  down  this  State,  praising  the  Democratic 
party  because  it  has  two  soldiers  at  the  head  of  its  ticket,  and 
sneering  at  us  because  Mr.  Foster  was  not  a  soldier  in  the 
field. 

That  party  has  taken  both  sides  of  every  great  question  in 
this  country  for  the  last  twenty  years.  They  are  in  favor  of  the 
war — after  it  is  over.  They  are  in  favor  of  hard  money, —  or 
they  will  be  next  year,  after  it  is  an  accomplished  fact.  They 

1  Hon.  Charles  Foster,  in  1879  the  Republican  candidate  for  Governor  of  Ohio. 


AND  PUBLIC  OPINION.  755 

were  opposed  to  greenbacks  when  greenbacks  were  necessary 
to  save  the  life  of  the  nation,  and  when  they  thought  it  would 
be  popular  to  oppose  greenbacks;  but  the  moment  they  found 
it  was  unpopular,  they  faced  the  other  way,  and  declared  that 
the  greenback  was  the  best  currency  the  world  ever  saw. 

I  should  like  to  ask  that  good,  old,  quiet  Democrat  how  he 
has  felt  when  they  have  told  him  to  vote  against  the  war  one 
year  and  then  praise  it  the  next;  how  he  felt  when  they  told  him 
to  curse  greenbacks,  and  then  to  wheel  right  round  on  his  heel 
and  march  the  other  way ;  and  still  he  voted  the  Democratic  ticket 
all  the  time.  They  told  him,  for  example,  that  the  proposition 
to  let  the  negro  have  his  freedom  was  an  outrageous  thing,  that 
must  not  be  listened  to,  and  he  voted  the  Democratic  ticket. 
A  little  while  after,  they  came  round  and  said :  "  We  will  en 
force  all  the  amendments  of  the  Constitution,  —  the  negro 
amendment  among  the  rest, — and  we  are  among  the  best 
friends  that  the  negro  ever  had."  And  yet  he  voted  with  them 
every  time,  facing  first  one  way  and  then  the  other.  When  we 
proposed  to  give  the  ballot  to  the  negro,  they  said :  "  Why,  he 
is  of  an  inferior  race.  God  made  him  to  be  a  hewer  of  Wood 
and  a  drawer  of  water.  He  is  inferior  to  us.  He  is  of  bad  odor, 
and  bad  every  way,  of  low  intelligence,  and  we  will  never,  never 
allow  him  to  vote."  What  do  they  say  now?  They  are  cooing 
and  billing  with  every  negro  that  will  listen  to  them,  and  asking 
him  to  vote  the  Democratic  ticket.  They  are  saying  to  him : 
"  My  friend,  the  Democratic  party  was  always  a  good  friend  of 
the  negro.  The  Democratic  party  knows  the  negro  better  than 
the  Republicans  do.  We  have  been  nearer  to  you.  We  know 
your  habits.  We  understand  your  character,  and  we  can  do  you 
more  good."  Yes,  they  have  been  nearer  to  you.  The  fellow 
that  flogs  you  with  a  cat-o'-nine-tails  has  to  be  pretty  near  to 
you.  He  has  a  warm  feeling  for  you.  The  man  who  brands 
your  cheek  with  a  red-hot  iron  gets  up  a  good  deal  of  warmth 
toward  you. 

But,  my  friends,  the  curious  thing  is,  how  a  steady-going,  con 
sistent  Democrat  can  have  followed  all  these  crooks  and  turns 
and  facings-about  of  his  party  for  all  these  years,  and  not  have 
got  dizzy  by  turning  so  frequently.  They  shouted  for  hard 
money,  and  he  voted  the  Democratic  ticket.  They  shouted 
for  soft  money,  and  he  voted  the  Democratic  ticket.  They  said 
the  three  amendments  to  the  Constitution  were  void  and  should 


756  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

not  be  enforced,  and  he  voted  the  Democratic  ticket.  They 
walked  right  out  to  the  next  great  election,  bringing  Horace 
Greeley  in  their  arms,  and  saying,  "We  will  carry  out  all  the 
amendments  to  the  Constitution,  we  will  be  the  best  friend  of 
the  negro  in  the  world ;  "  and  he  voted  the  Democratic  ticket. 

Now,  my  friends,  there  has  not  been  a  leading  doctrine  put 
forward  by  the  Democratic  party  in  all  these  years  that  it  has 
not  itself  abandoned ;  there  has  not  been  a  leading  prophecy 
made  by  it  which  has  not  proved  false.  I  do  not  believe 
there  is  a  fair-minded  Democrat  here  to-night  who  does  not 
rejoice  in  his  soul  that  his  party  has  for  the  last  twenty  years 
abandoned  its  leading  doctrines.  Are  you  sorry,  my  Demo 
cratic  friend,  that  slavery  is  dead?  I  believe  you  are  not. 
Then  you  are  glad  that  we  outvoted  you  when  you  tried  to 
keep  it  alive.  Are  you  sorry  that  Rebellion  and  Secession  are 
dead?  If  you  are  not,  then  you'  are  glad  that  you  were  out 
voted  and  overwhelmed  when  you  tried  to  keep  the  party  that 
sustained  them  alive.  Are  you  glad  that  our  war  was  not  a 
failure?  If  you  are,  you  are  glad  that  we  voted  you  down  in 
1864,  when  your  central  doctrine  was  that  the  war  was  a  failure, 
and  must  be  stopped.  If  you  are  glad  of  so  many  things,  will 
you  not  be  glad  when  we  have  voted  down  your  party  next 
Tuesday,  and  elected  Charles  Foster  Governor  of  Ohio? 

There  are  two  great  reasons  why  the  people  of  this  State  are 
going  to  do  it.  One  is,  that  they  do  not  intend  to  allow  any 
more  fooling  with  the  business  of  this  country.  For  the  last 
four  years  the  chief  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  restoration  of 
business  prosperity,  and  the  full  employment  of  labor,  has  been 
the  danger  threatened  by  the  politicians  in  Congress.  Business 
has  waited  to  awaken.  Prosperity  has  been  trying  to  come. 
General  Ewing 1  tells  us  that  it  is  Divine  Providence  and  a 
good  crop  that  brought  the  revival  of  business  this  year.  I 
remind  General  Ewing  that  we  had  a  bountiful  crop  last  year, 
and  business  did  not  revive.  I  remind  him  that  the  year  be 
fore  we  had  a  great  harvest  and  plenty,  and  prosperity  did  not 
come. 

Do  you  know  that,  when  we  commenced  this  campaign,  Gen 
eral  Ewing  began  to  preach  his  old  sermon  of  last  year,  —  his 
gospel  of  gloom  and  darkness  and  distress  and  misery?  and 

1  General  Thomas  Ewing,  the  Democratic  candidate  for  Governor  of  Ohio 
in  1879. 


AND   PUBLIC   OPINION.  757 

some  of  his  friends  said,  "  But  see  here,  General  Ewing,  the 
furnaces  are  aflame,  the  mills  are  busy,  and  it  will  not  do  to 
talk  that  these  people  are  all  in  distress."  And  for  a  week 
or  two  he  denied  that  there  was  any  revival  of  business.  He 
denied  it  flatly.  But  every  mill  roared  in  his  ears,  and  every 
furnace  and  forge  flashed  in  his  eyes,  the  truth  that  there  was  a 
revival  of  business ;  and  then  for  about  four  days  he  undertook 
to  say  that  it  was  a  campaign  dodge  of  the  Republican  party, — 
that  they  had  started  up  a  few  iron-mills  until  election  to  af 
fect  the  election.  But  that  would  not  work;  for  Democratic 
States  began  to  start  their  iron-mills,  business  in  the  old  Rebel 
States  began  to  revive,  and  Mr.  Ewing's  second  explanation 
failed.  Then  he  undertook,  and  is  yet  undertaking,  to  explain 
this  prosperity  away.  I  lately  heard  a  gentleman  tell  an  inci 
dent  that  illustrates  this  futile  attempt  of  Mr.  Ewing's.  Eng 
land  wanted  Garibaldi  to  marry  some  distinguished  English 
lady,  so  as  to  ally  free  Italy  to  England ;  they  got  it  well  talked 
up  in  diplomatic  circles;  but  finally  some  unfortunate  fellow 
suggested  a  fact  that  disturbed  their  calculations.  It  was  that 
Garibaldi  was  married ;  that  he  had  a  young,  healthy  wife, 
likely  to  outlive  him.  The  old  diplomatists,  not  to  be  balked 
by  any  obstacles,  said,  "  Never  mind,  we  will  get  Gladstone  to 
explain  her  away."  Gladstone  is  a  very  able  man,  but  when  he 
attempts  to  explain  away  so  real  a  thing  as  a  woman,  and  a 
wife  at  that,  he  undertakes  a  great  contract.  Thomas  Ewing  is 
not  any  abler  than  Gladstone,  and  his  attempt  to  explain  away 
the  prosperity  of  our  country  will  be  more  disastrous  than  the 
attempt  of  Gladstone  would  have  been,  if  he  had  made  one. 
Everywhere  he  goes  it  meets  him. 

Pig-iron  in  this  country,  the  lowest  form  of  the  iron  product, 
has  risen  in  price  almost  thirteen  dollars  a  ton  since  resump 
tion  came;  and  all  industries  depending  upon  it  have  risen  in 
proportion.  My  only  fear,  and  I  say  it  to  the  business  men 
around  me  to-night,  is  that  the  revival  of  business  is  coming  too 
fast,  —  that  we  may  overdo  it  and  bring  a  reaction  by  and  by. 
But  that  prosperity  has  come,  and,  if  we  do  not  abuse  it,  has 
come  to  stay,  I  have  no  doubt.  I  do  not  claim  that  the  resump 
tion  of  specie  payments  has  done  it  all ;  I  admit  that  the  favor 
able  balance  of  trade,  that  the  operation  of  our  tariff  laws,  that 
our  own  great  crops  and  the  failure  of  crops  in  Europe,  have 
done  much  to  secure  and  aid  this  revival  of  business ;  but  there 


758  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

is  an  element  in  this  revival  distinctly  and  markedly  traceable  to 
the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  and  I  ask  your  indulgence 
while  I  state  it. 

All  over  this  country  there  was  hidden  away  in  stocking-feet, 
in  tills,  in  safes,  capital  that  the  owners  dared  not  invest.  Why? 
Because  they  did  not  know  what  Congress  would  do ;  whether 
it  would  vote  their  prosperity  up  or  down ;  whether  the  wild 
vagaries  of  fiat  money  would  rule,  or  whether  the  old  dollar  of 
the  Constitution  and  the  fathers,  the  hundred-cent  dollar,  the 
dollar  all  round,  should  come  to  be  our  standard ;  and  so  they 
waited.  But  the  moment  our  government,  in  spite  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party,  in  spite  of  the  fiat-money  party,  in  spite  of  all 
croakers  of  all  parties,  resolved  to  redeem  the  great  war  prom 
ises  of  the  nation,  and  lift  our  currency  up  to  the  level  of  gold 
the  world  over,  that  moment  the  great  needed  restoration  of 
confidence  came;  and  when  it  came,  capital  came  out  of  its 
hiding-places  and  invested  itself  in  business.  And  that  invest 
ment,  that  confidence,  that  stability,  gave  the  grand  and  needed 
impetus  to  the  restoration  of  prosperity  in  this  country. 

Now,  what  has  been  the  trouble  with  us?  The  year  1860  was 
one  shore  of  prosperity,  and  1879  the  other;  and  between  those 
two  high  shores  has  flowed  the  broad,  deep,  dark  river  of  fire, 
and  blood,  and  disaster,  through  which  this  nation  has  been 
compelled  to  wade,  and  in  whose  depths  it  has  been  almost  suf 
focated  and  drowned.  In  the  darkness  of  that  terrible  passage 
we  carried  Liberty  in  our  arms ;  we  bore  the  Union  on  our 
shoulders ;  and  we  bore  in  our  hearts  and  on  our  arms  what 
was  even  better  than  Liberty  and  Union, — we  bore  the  faith 
and  honor  and  public  trust  of  this  mighty  nation.  And  never 
until  we  came  up  out  of  the  dark  waters,  out  of  the  darkness 
of  that  terrible  current,  and  planted  our  feet  upon  the  solid 
shore  of  1879,  —  never,  I  say,  until  then  could  this  country 
look  back  to  the  other  shore  and  feel  that  its  feet  were  on  solid 
ground,  and  then  look  forward  to  the  rising  uplands  of  perpetual 
peace  and  prosperity  that  should  know  no  diminution  in  the 
years  to  come. 

I  rejoice,  for  my  part,  that  the  party  to  which  I  belong  has 
not  been  fighting  against  God  in  this  struggle  for  prosperity.  I 
rejoice  that  the  party  to  which  I  belong  has  not  had  its  pros 
pects  hurt  by  the  coming  of  prosperity.  Can  you  say  as  much, 
my  Democratic  friend,  for  your  party?  Would  it  not  be  better 


AND  PUBLIC   OPINION.  759 

for  you  at  the  polls  next  Tuesday  if  the  blight  had  fallen  upon 
our  great  corn  crop,  —  if  the  Colorado  beetle  had  swept  every 
potato-field  in  America,  —  if  the  early  frost  had  smitten  us  all  ? 
Do  you  not  think  Mr.  Ewing  could  then  have  talked  more 
eloquently  about  the  grief,  suffering,  outrage,  and  hard  times 
brought  upon  you  by  the  Republican  policy  of  resumption?  I 
should  be  ashamed  to  belong  to  a  political  party  whose  pros 
pects  were  hurt  by  the  blessing  of  my  country. 

But  so  it  was  all  through  the  war.  Just  before  an  election  in 
Ohio,  any  time  during  the  war,  a  great  victory  over  the  Rebel 
lion  hurt  the  Democratic  party  in  this  State ;  and  Democrats 
walked  about  our  streets  looking  down  their  noses  in  sadness 
and  gloom,  recognizing  that  their  ballots  would  be  fewer  on 
election  day,  because  of  the  success  of  our  arms;  and  if  our 
soldiers  were  overwhelmed  in  battle,  —  if  five  thousand  of  your 
children  were  slaughtered  on  the  field  by  the  enemies  of  the 
republic,  —  the  Democrats  in  Ohio  walked  more  confidently  to 
the  polls  on  election  day,  and  said,  "Didn't  I  tell  you  so?" 
There  is  something  wrong  with  a  party  about  which  these 
things  can  be  truthfully  said ;  and  you  know  that  they  are 
the  truth. 

Now,  I  leave  all  that  with  this  single  reflection,  —  that  it  is  to 
me  and  to  my  party  a  matter  of  pride  and  congratulation  that, 
in  all  the  darkness  of  these  years,  we  have  not  deceived  you 
by  any  cunning  device  to  flatter  your  passions  or  your  hopes. 
We  told  you,  "These  are  hard  times;  we  are  in  the  midst  of 
suffering  ;  and  there  is  no  patent  process  by  which  you  can  get 
out  of  it.  You  cannot  print  yourselves  rich.  You  have  got  to 
suffer  and  be  strong.  You  have  got  to  endure  and  be  econom 
ical.  You  have  got  to  wait  in  patience  and  do  justice,  keep 
your  pledges,  keep  your  promises,  obey  the  laws,  and  by  and  by 
prosperity  will  come  with  its  blessings  upon  you."  We  have 
now  nothing  to  take  back.  We  rejoice  that  we  were  true  to 
you  in  the  days  of  darkness,  and  we  congratulate  you  that  you 
have  stood  by  the  truth  until  your  hour  of  triumph  has  come. 

I  said  there  were  two  reasons  why  I  thought  we  should  tri 
umph  next  Tuesday.  I  have  stated  one;  I  will  now  speak 
briefly  of  the  other. 

I  mean  to  say  that  the  great  audiences  that  have  gathered 
everywhere  in  Ohio  during  this  campaign  have  had  more  than 
finance  in  their  hearts.  They  have  thought  of  something  as 


760  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

much  higher  than  finance,  as  liberty  is  more  precious  than 
cash.  They  have  been  moved  —  and  I  ask  all  Democrats  to 
hear  it  with  patience  —  by  what  I  venture  to  call  the  new  re 
bellion  against  liberty  and  this  government.  I  do  not  mean  a 
rebellion  with  guns,  for  I  think  that  was  tried  to  the  heart's 
content  of  the  people  that  undertook  it.  Not  that,  but  another 
rebellion  no  less  wicked  in  purpose,  and  no  less  dangerous  in 
character.  Let  me  try,  in  a  few  words,  —  if  it  be  possible  to 
reach  all  this  vast  audience,  —  to  make  you  understand  what  I 
mean  by  this  new  rebellion. 

Fellow-citizens,  what  is  the  central  thought  in  American 
political  life?  What  is  the  germ  out  of  which  all  our  institu 
tions  were  born,  and  have  been  developed?  It  is  the  principle 
that  the  freely  expressed  will  of  the  majority  shall  be  the  law  of 
all,  —  that  all  shall  obey.  This  is  American  doctrine,  and  pre 
eminently  New  England  doctrine.  When  the  Mayflower  was 
about  to  land  her  precious  freight  upon  the  shore  of  Plymouth, 
the  Pilgrim  fathers  gathered  in  the  cabin  of  that  little  ship  on 
a  stormy  November  day,  and,  after  praying  to  Almighty  God 
for  the  success  of  their  great  enterprise,  drew  up  and  signed 
what  is  known  in  history  as  the  "  Pilgrim  Compact."  That 
compact  closes  with  the  declaration,  "  unto  which  we  promise 
all  due  submission  and  obedience."  Likewise  Roger  Williams 
and  the  Associates  of  Providence,  in  their  compact  of  1636, 
promised  in  all  civil  things  to  subject  themselves  in  active  and 
passive  obedience  to  all  such  orders  or  agreements  as  should 
be  made  for  the  public  good  of  the  body,  in  an  orderly  way,  by 
the  major  consent  of  the  inhabitants,  masters  of  families  incor 
porated  together  into  a  township.  [Here  there  was  great  ap 
plause.]  Ah,  fellow-citizens !  it  does  honor  to  the  heads  and 
the  hearts  of  a  great  New  England  audience  here,  on  this  West 
ern  Reserve,  to  applaud  these  grand  -and  simple  sentiments  of 
the  fathers.  They  said,  in  effect:  "No  standing  army  shall  be 
needed  to  make  us  obey.  We  will  erect  here  in  America  a 
substitute  for  monarchy,  a  substitute  for  despotism,  and  that 
substitute  shall  be  the  will  of  the  majority  as  the  law  of  all." 
And  that  germ,  planted  on  the  rocky  shores  of  New  England, 
has  sprung  up,  and  all  the  trees  of  our  liberty  have  grown  from 
it  into  the  beauty  and  glory  of  this  year  of  our  life. 

Over  against  that  there  grew  up  in  the  South  a  spirit  in  abso 
lute  antagonism  to  the  "  Pilgrim  Compact."  That  spirit,  engen- 


AND  PUBLIC   OPINION.  761 

dered  by  the  institution  of  slavery,  became  one  of  the  most 
powerful  and  despotic  of  all  the  forces  on  the  face  of  this  globe. 
Let  me  state,  even  as  an  apology  for  that  tyranny,  if  you  and  I 
owned  a  powder-mill  in  the  city  of  Cleveland,  we  should  have  a 
right  to  make  some  very  stringent  and  arbitrary  rules  about  that 
powder-mill.  We  should  have  a  right  to  say  that  no  man  should 
enter  it  who  had  nails  in  the  heels  of  his  boots,  because  a  single 
step  might  explode  it,  and  ruin  us  all.  But  that  would  be  an 
absurd  law  to  make  about  your  own  house,  or  about  a  green 
grocer's  shop. 

Now,  the  establishment  of  the  institution  of  slavery  required 
laws  and  customs  absolutely  tyrannical  in  their  character.  Nails 
in  the  heels  of  your  boots  in  a  powder-magazine  would  be  safety 
compared  with  letting  education  into  slavery.  It  was  an  insti 
tution  that  would  be  set  on  fire  by  the  torch  of  knowledge,  and 
the  South  knew  it;  and  therefore  they  said:  "  The  shining  gates 
of  knowledge  shall  be  shut  everywhere  where  a  slave  lives.  It 
shall  be  a  crime  to  teach  a  black  man  the  alphabet,  —  a  crime 
greater  still  to  teach  him  the  living  oracles  of  Almighty  God ; 
for  if  once  the  golden  rule  of  Christ  finds  its  way  into  the  heart 
of  a  negro  man,  and  he  learns  the  literature  of  liberty,  our 
institution  is  in  danger."  Hence  the  whole  Southern  people 
became  a  disciplined,  banded,  absolute  despotism  over  the  poli 
tics  of  their  section.  They  had  to  be.  I  do  not  blame  them ; 
I  only  blame  the  system  that  compelled  them  to  be  so.  Hence, 
before  the  war  they  were  the  best  disciplined  politicians  in  this 
world.  They  were  organized  on  the  one  great  idea  of  protect 
ing  their  Southern  society,  with  slavery  as  its  foundation. 

Do  you  know  the  power  of  discipline?  Here  is  avast  audi 
ence  of  ten  or  fifteen  thousand  people  in  this  square,  and  you 
are  not  organized.  One  resolute  captain,  with  one  hundred 
resolute,  disciplined  soldiers,  such  as  stormed  the  heights  of 
Kenesaw,  could  sweep  through  this  square,  and  drive  us  all  out 
hither  and  thither  at  his  pleasure.  And  that  is  nothing  against 
our  courage.  It  is  in  favor  of  their  discipline.  The  clinched 
fist  of  Southern  slaveholders  was  too  much  for  the  great,  bulky, 
undisciplined  strength  of  the  North.  They  went  to  Washing 
ton  consolidated  for  one  purpose,  and  they  called  all  their  fel 
lows  around  them  from  the  North,  and  said,  "  Give  way  to  our 
doctrine,  and  you  have  our  friendship  and  support ;  go  against 
us,  and  we  rule  you  out  of  place  and  power."  The  result 


762  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

was  that  the  Southern  politicians  absolutely  commanded  and 
controlled  their  Northern  allies.  They  converted  the  Northern 
Democrats  into  doughfaces  of  the  most  abject  pattern ;  and  you 
know  here  to-night,  if  there  be  a  Democrat  who  listens  to  me, 
that  the  Republican  party  was  born  as  a  protest  against  the 
tyranny  of  that  Southern  political  hierarchy  that  made  slaves 
of  all  Northern  Democrats.  To  a  great  extent  the  Republican 
party  was  made  up  twenty-five  years  ago  of  Democrats  that 
would  no  longer  consent  to  be  slaves. 

Now,  why  am  I  going  into  this  long  recital  concerning  the 
past?  For  this  purpose.  After  the  war  was  over  and  recon 
struction  completed,  this  same  Southern  political  hierarchy 
came  back  to  Washington,  and  to-day  they  are  as  consolidated 
as  the  slaveholding  politicians  of  1860  and  1861  were.  To-day 
they  hold  in  their  grip  absolutely  all  the  Northern  members  of 
their  party.  The  Northern  doughface  has  again  appeared  in 
American  politics,  and  he  is  found  wherever  a  Democratic  Con 
gressman  sits.  I  say  without  offence,  it  is  the  literal  truth  that 
this  day  there  is  not  in  all  this  country  an  absolutely  free  and 
independent-minded  Democratic  member  of  either  house  of 
your  Congress  at  Washington. 

Now,  let  me  go  back  for  a  moment  and  return  to  this  point 
with  a  reinforcement 

Are  you  aware  that  there  is  one  thing  that  can  kill  this 
country,  and  kill  it  beyond  all  hope?  That  one  thing  is  the 
destruction  or  enslavement  of  its  voting  population.  The  vot 
ing  population  is  the  only  sovereign  in  the  United  States.  You 
talk  about  the  States  as  sovereign  States,  or  even  as  sovereign 
nations.  A  corporation  is  not  a  sovereign.  The  corporation 
that  we  call  Ohio  was  made  by  the  people,  and  they  are  its 
sovereigns.  Even  the  grand  corporation  that  we  call  the  Unit 
ed  States  was  created  also  by  the  people,  who  are  its  superiors 
and  its  only  sovereigns.  Now,  therefore,  if  anything  happens  in 
this  country  to  corrupt,  enslave,  or  destroy  the  voters  of  the 
United  States,  that  is  an  irreparable  injury  to  Liberty  and  the 
Union.  If  in  Europe  they  slay  a  sovereign,  one  man  is  killed 
and  another  can  be  found  to  take  his  place ;  but  when  they  slay 
our  sovereign,  there  is  no  heir  to  the  throne,  —  our  sovereign 
has  no  successor. 

Well,  now,  that  is  rather  general,  but  I  ask  you  to  come 
down  to  particulars.  Let  me  make  this  statement  to  you :  in 


?IT1 


AND  PUBLIC  OPINION. 


1872,  only  seven  years  ago,  in  the  eleven  States  that  went  into 
rebellion  there  were  cast,  at  a  free  and  fair  election,  759,000 
Republican  votes  and  650,000  Democratic  votes.  There  is  lib 
erty  for  you  !  There  are  a  million  and  a  third  of  free  voting 
citizens  casting  their  ballots  for  the  men  of  their  choice  !  This 
country  has  been  growing  in  population  the  last  seven  years, 
but  let  me  tell  you  what  calamity  has  happened  to  us.  In 
those  same  eleven  late  Rebel  States  there  have  disappeared 
apparently  from  the  face  of  the  earth  four  hundred  thousand 
American  voters.  Fellow-citizens,  that  is  an  awful  sentence 
which  I  have  just  spoken  in  your  hearing.  I  repeat  it.  In 
eleven  States  of  this  Union  there  have  disappeared  apparently 
from  the  face  of  the  earth  four  hundred  thousand  American 
voters.  Where  have  they  gone?  They  are  all  Republicans. 
Have  they  gone  to  the  Democratic  party?  No;  for  the  Dem 
ocratic  party  in  those  States  has  also  lost  some  of  its  voters. 
What  has  happened?  I  will  tell  you.  That  spirit  of  Southern 
tyranny,  that  old  spirit  of  despotism  born  of  slavery,  has  arisen 
and  killed  freedom  in  the  South.  It  has  slain  liberty  in  at 
least  seven  of  the  eleven  States  of  the  South. 

It  happened  in  this  wise.  In  1872,  in  five  States  of  the 
South  we  had  an  overwhelming  and  a  fair  majority  of  Repub 
lican  votes.  For  example,  in  the  State  of  Mississippi,  at  the 
Congressional  election  of  1872,  there  were  thrown  80,803  Re 
publican  votes,  and  there  were  thrown  40,500  Democratic  votes. 
That  was  a  fair  test  of  the  strength  of  the  two  parties.  Five  Re 
publicans  and  one  Democrat  were  elected  to  Congress  from  the 
State  of  Mississippi.  Six  years  passed,  and  in  1878  there  were 
just  2,056  Republican  votes  cast  in  the  State  of  Mississippi. 
How  many  Democratic  votes?  Thirty-five  thousand.  The 
Democratic  vote  had  fallen  off  5,000,  the  Republican  had  fallen 
off  78,000  votes.  Where  had  the  78,000  Republican  voters  gone  ? 
I  will  tell  you.  The  Rebel  army,  without  uniforms,  organized 
itself  as  Democratic  clubs  in  Mississippi,  and,  armed  with  shot 
guns  and  rifles,  surrounded  the  houses  of  Republican  voters, 
with  the  muzzles  of  their  guns  at  their  heads,  in  the  night,  and 
said,  "  You  come  out  and  vote,  if  you  dare ;  we  will  kill  you 
when  you  come."  And  all  over  the  State  of  Mississippi  the 
Democratic  party,  being  the  old  Rebel  army,  deployed  itself 
among  the  cabins  of  the  blacks,  and  killed  liberty  everywhere 
throughout  that  State. 


764  THE   DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

Why,  in  a  district  of  Mississippi  where,  in  1872,  fifteen  thou 
sand  Republican  votes  were  polled,  and  eight  thousand  Demo 
cratic,  there  were  but  four  thousand  votes  polled  for  a  Rebel 
general,  and  twelve  scattering  votes  polled  for  other  people. 
Not  one  Republican  vote  was  put  in  a  box  in  all  the  district. 
So  it  was  in  Alabama.  So  it  was  in  Louisiana,  in  part.  So  it 
was  in  the  two  Carolinas.  The  result  was  four  hundred  thou 
sand  voters  substantially  annihilated.  And  the  further  result 
was  this :  thirty  Democratic  Rebels  elected  to  the  House  of 
Representatives  in  Republican  districts,  where  Liberty  had  first 
been  slain ;  and  to-day  there  are  thirty  members  of  Congress, 
not  one  of  whom  has  any  more  right  to  sit  there  and  make  laws 
for  you  and  me,  than  an  inhabitant  of  that  jail  has  a  right  to  go 
there  and  make  laws  for  us.  They  were  not  created  Congress 
men  by  virtue  of  law,  but  by  virtue  of  murder,  assassination, 
riot,  intimidation ;  and  on  the  dead  body  of  American  Liberty 
they  stand  and  make  laws  for  you  and  me.  That  gives  them 
the  House.  That  gives  them  the  Senate.  That  gives  the  old 
slave  power  and  the  old  Rebel  power  its  grip  again  on  the 
country,  and  it  makes  what  we  call  the  Solid  South.  I  am 
talking  plain  talk.  I  am  talking  words  that  I  expect  will  be 
read  by  every  gentleman  in  Congress  whom  I  am  to-night  de 
nouncing.  I  expect  to  meet  those  gentlemen  and  make  good 
every  word  I  say. 

Now,  what  purpose  has  this  Solid  South  in  thus  grasping 
power  and  killing  liberty?  This:  they  are  determined  to  make 
their  old  "  lost  cause "  the  triumphing  cause.  Who  is  their 
leader  to-day?  By  all  odds  the  most  popular  man  south  of 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line  is  Jefferson  Davis  of  Mississippi.  He 
is  to-day  their  hero  and  their  leader ;  and  I  will  give  you  my 
proof  of  it. 

Do  you  know  that  our  friend  General  Rice1  has  been  making 
a  great  deal  of  small  capital  out  of  the  fact  that  he  introduced 
an  Arrears  of  Pensions  Bill  for  soldiers?  You  all  know  what 
kind  of  a  bill  that  was.  It  was  a  bill  granting  arrears  of  pen 
sions  to  our  soldiers ;  but  it  also  granted  arrears  of  pensions  to 
all  Rebel  soldiers  who  had  fought  in  the  Mexican  war.  We  had 
made  a  law  that  the  name  of  a  man  who  had  taken  up  arms 
against  his  country  should  be  stricken  from  our  pension  rolls, 
and  he  should  receive  no  money  out  of  our  treasury.  That  law 

1  The  Democratic  candidate  for  Lieutenant-Governor  in  Ohio  in  1879. 


AND  PUBLIC   OPINION.  765 

Mr.  Rice's  bill  repealed  in  so  far  as  it  related  to  soldiers  of  the 
Mexican  war,  and  he  knew  and  was  told  plainly  that  his  bill 
included  Jefferson  Davis  as  one  of  the  pensioners  to  be  helped ; 
and  even  in  that  Rebel  Congress  there  were  many  Democrats 
who  could  not  quite  be  brought  up  to  the  point  of  voting  to 
pension  Jefferson  Davis :  hence  Mr.  Rice's  bill  hung  in  the  com 
mittee,  and  was  not  reported.  Then  a  Republican  member  of 
the  House  moved  to  discharge  the  committee  from  the  con 
sideration  of  the  whole  subject.  He  introduced  a  bill  that  did 
not  have  Jefferson  Davis  in  it,  but  had  only  our  soldiers  in  it; 
and  that  bill,  not  Mr.  Rice's,  passed.  But  when  that  bill  reached 
the  Senate,  a  Democrat  moved  to  add  the  Rice  section,  which 
covered  all  Rebel  pensioners  under  its  provisions ;  and  then  it 
was  that  Mr.  Hoar  of  Massachusetts  called  the  attention  of  the 
United  States  Senate  to  the  fact  that  that  amendment  would 
include  Jefferson  Davis,  and  he  moved  an  amendment  to  the 
amendment,  that  it  should  not  be  so  construed. 

What  followed?  Immediately  there  sprang  to  his  feet  our 
Ohio  Senator.  I  blush  for  my  State  when  I  repeat  it.  Allen 
G.  Thurman  rose  to  his  feet  and  said,  the  Democratic  legisla 
ture  of  Ohio  had  instructed  him  to  vote  to  pension  the  soldiers 
of  the  Mexican  war,  and  they  did  not  instruct  him  to  make  an 
exception  against  Jefferson  Davis,  and  therefore  he  should  vote 
against  Mr.  Hoar's  amendment.  Thereupon  Mr.  Hoar  spoke 
against  the  amendment  that  would  pension  Jefferson  Davis,  and 
the  moment  he  did  it  there  sprang  up  all  over  that  chamber 
champions  and  defenders  of  Jefferson  Davis.  The  tomahawks 
literally  flew,  or  rather  metaphorically  flew,  everywhere  at  the 
head  of  any  Republican  who  dared  to  suggest  that  the  govern 
ment  ought  not  to  pension  Davis.  Mr.  Lamar  of  Mississippi,  an 
eloquent  and  able  Senator,  rose  in  his  place,  and  said  that  from 
the  days  of  Hampden  to  the  days  of  Washington  a  purer  patriot 
and  a  nobler  man  than  Jefferson  Davis  of  Mississippi  had  not 
lived  on  this  earth.  Man  after  man  exhausted  his  eloquence 
in  defending  and  eulogizing  the  arch-rebel,  who  plunged  this 
country  into  oceans  of  blood.  I  give  you  this  history  to  show 
the  spirit  that  animates  the  men  who  rule  in  Congress  to-day. 

Now  let  me  say  a  word  more  that  connects  what  I  am  saying 
with  the  old  story  of  the  days  before  slavery  was  dead.  I  have 
been  sixteen  years  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  in  all  that  period  I  have  never  once  known  —  and  my  friends 


;66  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

here  on  the  stand  can  testify  to  the  same  in  their  experience  — 
the  members  of  the  Republican  party  to  bind  themselves  in 
a  caucus  to  support  any  bill  before  Congress.  I  have  seen  it 
tried  once  or  twice,  but  I  have  always  seen  dozens  of  Republi 
cans  spring  to  their  feet,  and  say,  "  We  are  free  men,  and  we  will 
vote  according  to  the  interests  of  our  constituents  and  the  dic 
tates  of  our  consciences,  and  no  caucus  shall  bind  us."  But  the 
moment  the  Democratic  party  got  back  into  power  again,  that 
moment  they  organized  the  caucus,  —  the  secret  caucus,  the 
oath-bound  caucus  ;  for  in  the  recent  extra  session  they  actually 
took  oaths  not  to  divulge  what  occurred  in  caucus,  and  to  be 
bound  by  whatever  the  caucus  decreed.  And  I  have  known  man 
after  man,  who  had  before  sworn  by  all  the  wicked  gods  at  once 
that  he  would  not  be  bound  to  vote  for  a  certain  measure,  walk 
out  of  the  caucus  like  a  sheep  led  to  the  slaughter,  and  vote  for 
the  bill  that  he  had  cursed.  They  brought  forward  bills  at  the 
extra  session  so  full  of  manifest  errors  that,  when  we  pointed 
them  out,  they  would  admit  in  private  that  they  were  errors 
which  ought  to  be  corrected,  but  they  would  say,  "  We  have 
agreed  to  vote  for  it  without  amendment,  and  we  will."  We 
pointed  out  wretchedly  bad  grammar  in  bills,  and  they  would 
not  even  correct  this  grammar,  because  the  caucus  had  adopted 
it.  Now,  therefore,  gentlemen,  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  is  ruled  by  a  caucus.  It  has  ceased  to  be  a  deliberative 
body.  It  is  ruled  by  a  secret  caucus,  and  who  rules  the  caucus? 
Two  thirds  of  its  members  are  men  who  fought  this  country  in 
war,  who  tried  to  destroy  this  nation,  and  who  to-day  look 
upon  Jefferson  Davis  as  the  foremost  patriot  and  highest  politi 
cal  leader  in  America.  Therefore,  the  leadership  which  rules 
you  is  the  rebellion  in  Congress.  . 

Well,  now,  what  of  that?  This  is  not  all.  They  look  over 
the  field  of  1880  and  see  that  they  have  in  their  hands  the  Solid 
South,  and  that  they  lack  only  one  thing  more.  They  lack 
thirty-seven  electoral  votes  to  add  to  their  one  hundred  and 
thirty-five ;  and  if  they  can  get  them  they  have  captured  the 
offices  of  the  government  and  have  captured  the  Presidency. 
Then  the  South  will  have  the  whole  control  of  this  republic  in 
its  hands. 

Now,  how  are  they  going  to  get  the  thirty-seven  electoral 
votes?  There  are  two  States  that  can  supply  them,  New  York 
and  Ohio.  If  they  can  get  those  two  States  next  year,  they 


AND  PUBLIC   OPINION.  767 

have  indeed  captured  the  government.  [A  voice,  "  They  can't 
have  them  !  "]  This  good  friend  says  they  can't  have  them. 
They  cannot  get  them  in  this  audience.  This  is  not  the  place 
to  capture  the  State  of  Ohio  for  Rebel  brigadiers.  They  cannot 
capture  it  in  any  of  the  great  agricultural  counties  of  Ohio,  for 
they  are  eound  and  true  to  the  Union,  and  loyal  to  their  heart's 
core.  They  cannot  go  into  the  central  parts  of  patriotic  New 
York  and  capture  the  thirty-seven  votes.  But  I  will  tell  you, 
fellow-citizens,  what  they  hope  to  do,  and  there  is  one  way  in 
which  they  may  succeed.  Let  me  stop  and  say  one  single 
word  to  you  about  the  great  cities. 

Thomas  Jefferson  said  that  great  cities  were  the  sores  —  the 
cancers —  on  the  body  politic.  A  city  of  the  size  of  Cleveland 
has  its  troubles.  A  great  city  in  this  country,  like  the  city  of 
New  York,  has  passed  the  bounds  of  safety.  The  ablest  orator 
that  Rome  ever  produced,  in  describing  the  political  party  led 
by  Catiline,  said  that  all  the  bankrupts,  all  the  desperadoes,  all 
the  thieves  and  robbers  and  murderers,  gathered  round  Catiline ; 
and,  finally,  in  a  horrible  figure  of  tremendous  power,  declared 
that  the  party  .of  Catiline  was  "  the  bilge-water  of  Rome."  What 
a  figure  that  is,  my  friends !  What  do  you  mean  by  "  bilge- 
water"?  That  water  which  leaks  stealthily  through  the  planks 
of  your  ship,  and  down  below  the  decks ;  and  in  the  darkness, 
out  of  sight,  out  of  reach,  it  reeks  and  stagnates  and  stinks, 
breeds  pestilence  and  brings  death  upon  all  that  are  on  board. 
Cicero  said  that  that  party  which  gathered  in  Rome  was  "  the 
bilge-water  of  Rome  " ;  and  into  the  bilge-water  in  the  cities  of 
Cincinnati  and  New  York  the  Democratic  party  desire  to  insert 
their  political  pumps  and  pump  out  the  hell-broth  that  can 
poison  and  corrupt  and  ruin  the  freedom  of  both  these  great 
cities,  and  gain  them  to  the  Solid  South.  That  is  the  pro 
gramme.  If  they  can  get  control  of  the  elections,  they  will 
make  both  those  cities  strongly  enough  Democratic  to  over 
whelm  all  the  votes  that  the  green  lanes  of  our  country  can 
grow. 

Now  what  is  in  the  way  of  that?  Just  two  things.  The 
United  States  has  passed  a  law  to  put  a  Democrat  at  one  side 
of  the  ballot-box  in  the  great  cities,  and  a  Republican  at  the 
other  side ;  and  it  empowers  those  two  men,  not  to  control  the 
election,  but  to  stand  there  as  eyes  of  the  government  and  look, 
—  look  first  to  see  that  the  ballot-box  is  empty  when  they  be- 


768  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

gin,  and  then  into  the  face  of  every  man  who  votes ;  and,  if  he 
comes  twice  to  vote,  record  it,  have  him  brought  before  the 
judge,  and  sent  to  the  penitentiary  for  his  crime.  The  two  men 
are  to  stay  there  until  the  polls  are  closed,  and  not  allow  the 
ballot-boxes  to  be  sent  off  and  the  vote  to  be  counted  in  secret 
by  partisan  judges,  but  cause  it  to  be  opened  and  the  votes  to 
be  counted  in  the  light  of  day,  recorded,  and  certified  to  by  the 
Republican  and  Democratic  officers,  so  that  the  purity  of  the 
ballot-box  shall  not  be  outraged  and  freedom  shall  not  be  slain. 

No  juster  law  than  that  was  ever  passed  on  this  continent. 
It  saved  New  York  from  the  supremest  of  crimes.  It  elicited, 
even  from  a  Democratic  committee  of  which  A.  V.  Rice  was 
a  member,  the  highest  possible  encomium  in  1876.  And  he 
and  S.  S.  Cox,  of  New  York,  in  an  official  report  to  Congress, 
recommended  to  all  parts  of  the  country  the  admirable  election 
law  of  Congress  that  brought  into  unison  and  co-operation  the 
officers  of  the  State  and  the  officers  of  the  nation,  in  keeping  a 
pure  ballot  and  a  free  election  in  the  great  cities.  That  is  what 
the  Democratic  party  said  of  this  law  in  1876.  But  their  mas 
ters  of  the  caucus  had  not  then  given  out  their  .decree.  They 
have  now  given  it;  the  decree  from  the  secret  caucus,  the  de 
cree  from  their  old  slave-masters,  has  now  gone  forth :  "  Take 
those  two  men  away  from  the  ballot-box ;  wipe  out  the  election 
law,  so  that  the  Tweeds  of  New  York  and  the  Eph  Hollands 
of  Cincinnati  may  have  free  course  to  do  the  work  and  *  fix ' 
1880  in  their  own  way."  That  is  the  programme  of  the  Rebel 
brigadiers  in  Congress. 

I  understand  that  General  Ewing  said  here,  the  other  night, 
that  he  was  amazed  to  hear  Republicans  talk  as  though  they 
were  afraid  of  a  few  Rebel  brigadiers.  It  was  not  so  surprising, 
he  said,  that  our  friend  Foster  should  be  afraid  of  them  (throw 
ing  a  slur  at  him  because  he  was  not  in  the  army),  but  he  was 
surprised  that  General  Garfield  should  be  alarmed  at  the  brig 
adiers.  I  am  here  to  answer  General  Ewing.  As  to  who  is 
afraid  of  brigadiers,  let  him  boast  who  has  the  first  need  to 
boast.  But  there  are  some  things  that  I  am  afraid  of,  and  I 
confess  it  in  this  great  presence.  I  am  afraid  to  do  a  mean 
thing.  I  am  afraid  of  any  policy  that  will  let  the  vileness  of 
New  York  city  pour  its  foul  slime  over  the  freedom  of  the 
American  ballot-box  and  ruin  it.  And  the  man  that  is  not 
afraid  of  that,  —  I  am  ashamed  of  him. 


AND  PUBLIC   OPINION.  769 

Now,  how  to  get  those  two  men  away  from  the  ballot-box  is 
the  Rebel  problem.  If  they  get  them  away,  the  Solid  South  has 
triumphed ;  if  they  get  them  away,  "  the  lost  cause  "  has  won, 
and  Jefferson  Davis  is  crowned  the  foremost  man  in  America. 
If  they  get  them  away,  good  by  for  a  generation  to  come  to  the 
old  "  Pilgrim  Compact "  and  the  doctrine  of  the  right  of  the 
majority  to  rule. 

Now,  how  did  they  undertake  to  get  them  away?  In  this 
way.  They  said  to  us :  "  At  last  we  have  the  control  of  the 
treasury.  No  money  can  be  used  to  support  the  government 
unless  we  vote  it  by  an  appropriation.  Now,  we  tell  you  that 
we  will  never  vote  one  dollar  to  support  the  -government  until 
you  join  us  in  tearing  down  that  election  law,  and  taking  away 
those  two  witnesses  from  the  polls."  That  is  what  they  told  us. 

Then  we  answered  them  thus:  "  Eighteen  years  ago  you 
were  in  power  in  this  Congress,  and  the  last  act  of  your  dom 
ination  was  to  tell  us  that,  if  we  dared  to  elect  Abraham  Lin 
coln  President,  you  would  shoot  our  government  to  death ;  and 
we  answered,  '  We  are  free  men,  begotten  of  freedom,  and  are 
accustomed  to  vote  our  thoughts ;  we  believe  in  Abraham  Lin 
coln,  and  will  elect  him  President.'  And  we  did.  And  then 
eleven  great  States  declared  that  they  would  shoot  the  Union  to 
death;  and,  appealing  to  the  majesty  of  the  great  Northland, 
we  went  out  into  a  thousand  bloody  battle-fields,  shot  the  shoot 
ers  to  death,  and  saved  this  Union  alive.  For  eighteen  years 
you  have  been  in  exile,  banished  from  power,  but  now,  by  virtue 
of  murder  and  assassination  and  the  slaying  of  liberty,  you  have 
come  back;  and  the  first  act  you  do  on  your  return  is,  not 
courageously  to  dare  us  out  to  battle,  but,  like  assassins,  cow 
ards,  murderers,  you  come  to  us  and  say,  '  With  our  hand  on 
the  throat  of  your  government,  we  will  starve  it  to  death  if  you 
do  not  let  us  pluck  down  the  sacred  laws  that  protect  the  purity 
of  elections.'  And  by  the  sacred  memories  of  the  war,  we 
reply,  '  You  shall  not  starve  this  government  to  death,  nor  shall 
you  tear  down  this  law.  The  men  that  saved  it  in  battle  will 
now  feed  it  in  peace.  The  men  that  bore  it  on  their  shields  in 
the  hour  of  death  will  feed  it  with  the  gift  of  their  hands  in  the 
hour  of  its  glory.'  "  And  they  said,  "  You  shall  try  it."  Then 
they  passed  their  iniquitous  bill.  They  took  the  bread  of  the 
government,  spread  upon  it  the  poison  of  the  bilge  water  of  New 
York  and  Cincinnati,  and  they  said  to  the  government,  "Eat 

VOL.  ii.  49 


;;o  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY 

this  or  starve."  They  carried  the  bill  through  the  House 
and  through  the  Senate,  and  it  went  to  an  Ohio  Republican 
who  sits  in  the  seat  of  great  Washington,  whose  arm  is  mailed 
with  the  thunderbolt  of  the  Constitution;  and  he  hurled  his 
veto  against  the  wicked  bill,  and  killed  it.  Five  times  they 
tried  the  bill,  and  five  times  he  killed  with  the  power  of  the 
Constitution  the  wickedness  they  sought  to  perpetrate.  And 
then,  like  cowards  as  they  were,  they  passed  all  the  appropria 
tions  but  six  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  said,  "  We  will  come 
back  to  this  subject  next  winter,  and  we  will  never  give  it  up 
until  we  conquer  you ;  and  in  the  mean  time,"  they  said,  "  we 
will  appeal  to  the  people  at  the  ballot-box."  They  are  now 
making  that  appeal.  And  so  are  we.  That  is  what  we  are  here 
for  to-night.  And  it  is  that  appeal  that  awakens  this  people  as 
it  has  never  been  awakened  before  since  the  days  of  Vallan- 
digham  and  Brough,  especially  Brough.  In  the  presence  of  this 
people,  in  the  heart  of  this  old  Reserve,  I  feel  the  consciousness 
of  our  strength  and  the  assurance  of  our  victory. 

Now,  fellow-citizens,  a  word  before  I  leave  you,  on  the  very 
eve  of  the  holy  day  of  God,  —  a  fit  moment  to  consecrate  our 
selves  finally  to  the  great  work  of  next  Tuesday  morning.  I  see 
in  this  great  audience  to-night  a  great  many  young  men, —  young 
men  who  are  about  to  cast  their  first  votes.  I  want  to  give  you 
a  word  of  suggestion  and  advice.  I  heard  a  very  brilliant  thing 
said  the  other  day  by  a  boy  in  one  of  our  northwestern  counties. 
He  said  to  me,  "  General,  I  have  a  great  mind  to  vote  the  Dem 
ocratic  ticket."  That  was  not  the  brilliant  thing.  I  said  to 
him,  "Why?"  "  Why,"  said  he,  "  my  father  is  a  Republican, 
and  my  brothers  are  Republicans,  and  I  am  a  Republican  all 
over;  but  I  want  to  be  an  independent  man,  and  I  don't  want 
anybody  to  say,  '  That  fellow  votes  the  Republican  ticket  just 
because  his  dad  does,'  and  I  have  half  a  mind  to  vote  the  Dem 
ocratic  ticket  just  to  prove  my  independence."  I  did  not  like 
the  thing  the  boy  suggested,  but  I  do  admire  the  spirit  of  a 
boy  who  wants  to  have  -some  independence.  Now,  I  tell  you, 
young  man,  do  not  vote  the  Republican  ticket  just  because  your 
father  votes  it.  Do  not  vote  the  Democratic  ticket,  even  if  he 
does  vote  it.  But  let  me  give  you  this  one  word  of  advice,  as 
you  are  about  to  pitch  your  tent  in  one  of  the  great  political 
camps. 

Your  life  is  full  and  buoyant  with  hope  now,  and  I  beg  you, 


AND  PUBLIC   OPINION.  771 

when  you  pitch  your  tent,  pitch  it  among  the  living,  and  not 
among  the  dead.  If  you  are  at  all  inclined  to  pitch  it  among 
the  Democratic  people,  let  me  go  with  you  for  a  moment 
while  we  survey  the  ground  where  I  hope  you  will  not  shortly 
lie.  It  is  a  sad  place,  young  man,  for  you  to  put  your  young 
life.  It  is  to  me  far  more  like  a  graveyard  than  a  camp  for 
the  living.  Look  at  it !  It  is  billowed  all  over  with  the  graves 
of  dead  issues,  of  buried  opinions,  of  exploded  theories,  of 
disgraced  doctrines.  Here  are  the  tombs  of  Squatter  Sover 
eignty,  the  Dred  Scott  Decision,  Slavery,  the  Rebellion,  State 
Sovereignty,  Secession,  and  opposition  to  the  war.  You  can 
not  live  in  comfort  in  such  a  place.  But  before  I  leave  this 
graveyard  I  must  point  out  to  you  a  new-made  grave,  a  little 
mound,  —  short.  The  grass  has  hardly  sprouted  over  it,  and  all 
around  it  I  see  torn  pieces  of  paper  with  the  word  "  fiat "  on 
them ;  looking  down  in  curiosity,  and  wondering  what  the  little 
grave  is,  I  read:  "  Sacred  to  the  memory  of  the  Rag  Baby; 
nursed  in  the  brain  of  fanaticism ;  rocked  by  Thomas  Ewing, 
George  H.  Pendleton,  Samuel  Gary,  and  a  few  others  through 
out  the  land.  But  it  died  on  the  1st  of  January,  1879,  and  the 
one  hundred  and  forty  millions  of  gold  that  God  made,  and  not 
fiat  power,  lies  upon  its  little  body  to  keep  it  down  forever." 

O,  young  man,  come  out  of  that  camp  !  That  is  no  place 
in  which  to  put  your  young  life.  Come  out,  and  come  over 
into  this  camp  of  liberty,  of  order,  of  law,  of  justice,  of  freedom, 
of  all  that  is  glorious  under  these  night  stars. 

Is  there  any  death  here  in  our  camp?  Yes!  yes!  Three 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  soldiers,  the  noblest  band  that 
ever  trod  the  earth,  died  to  make  this  camp  a  camp  of  glory 
and  of  liberty  forever.  But  there  are  no  dead  issues  here. 
There  are  no  dead  ideas  here.  Hang  out  our  banner  under 
the  blue  sky  this  night  until  it  shall  sweep  the  green  turf 
under  your  feet!  It  hangs  over  our  camp.  Read  away  up 
under  the  stars  the  inscription  we  have  written  on  it,  lo  !  these 
twenty-five  years.  Twenty-five  years  ago  the  Republican  party 
was  married  to  liberty,  and  this  is  our  silver  wedding,  fellow- 
citizens.  A  worthily  married  pair  love  each  other  better  on  the 
day  of  their  silver  wedding  than  on  the  day  of  their  first  espou 
sals  ;  and  we  are  truer  to  liberty  to-day  and  dearer  to  God  than 
we  were  when  we  spoke  our  first  word  of  liberty.  Read  away 
up  under  the  sky,  across  our  starry  banner,  that  first  word  we 


772  THE  DEMOCRATIC  PARTY. 

uttered  twenty-five  years  ago!  What  was  it?  "Slavery  shall 
never  extend  over  another  foot  of  the  territories  of  the  Great 
West."  Is  that  dead  or  alive?  Alive,  thank  God,  forevermore  ! 
And  truer  to-night  than  it  was  the  hour  it  was  written !  Then  it 
was  a  hope,  a  promise,  a  purpose.  To-night  it  is  equal  with 
the  stars,  —  immortal  history  and  immortal  truth. 

Follow  the  glorious  steps  of  our  banner.  Every  great  record 
that  we  have  made,  we  have  vindicated  with  our  blood  and  with 
our  truth.  It  sweeps  the  ground,  and  it  touches  the  stars. 
Come  here,  young  man,  and  put  in  your  young  life  where  all  is 
living,  and  where  nothing  is  dead  but  the  heroes  that  defended 
it.  I  think  these  young  men  will  do  that. 

Gentlemen,  we  are  closing  this  memorable  campaign.  We 
have  got  our  enemies  on  the  run  everywhere ;  and  all  you  need 
to  do  in  this  noble  old  city,  this  capital  of  the  Western  Reserve, 
is  to  follow  them  up  and  finish  the  campaign  by  snowing  the 
Rebellion  under  once  more.  We  stand  on  an  isthmus.  This 
year  and  next  is  the  narrow  isthmus  between  us  and  perpetual 
victory.  If  you  can  win  now,  and  win  in  1880,  then  the  very 
stars  in  their  courses  will  fight  for  us.  The  census  will  do  the 
work,  and  will  give  us  thirty  more  free  men  of  the  North  in 
our  Congress  that  will  make  up  for  the  rebellion  of  the  South. 
Stand  in  your  places,  men  of  Ohio !  Fight  this  battle,  win  this 
victory,  and  then  one  more  puts  you  in  safety  forever ! 


ZACHARIAH    CHANDLER. 

REMARKS    MADE   IN   THE    HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 
JANUARY  28,  1880. 


THE  following  Resolutions  were  received  from  the  Senate,  pending 
which  Mr.  Garfield  made  these  remarks.  * 

"  IN  THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  January  28,  1880. 

"Resolved,  That  the  Senate  received  with  profound  sorrow  the  an 
nouncement  of  the  death  of  Zachariah  Chandler,  late  a  Senator  of  the 
United  States  from  the  State  of  Michigan,  and  for  nearly  nineteen  years 
a  member  of  this  body. 

"  Resolved,  That,  to  express  some  estimate  held  of  his  eminent  ser 
vices  in  a  long  public  career,  rendered  conspicuous  by  fearless,  patriotic 
devotion,  the  business  of  the  Senate  be  now  suspended,  that  the  asso 
ciates  of  the  departed  Senator  may  pay  fitting  tribute  to  his  public  and 
private  virtues. 

"Resolved,  That  the  loss  of  the  country,,  sustained  in  the  death  of 
Mr.  Chandler,  was  manifest  by  expressions  of  public  sorrow  through  the 
land. 

"  Resolved,  That,  as  a  mark  of  respect  for  the  memory  of  the  dead 
Senator,  the  members  of  the  Senate  will  wear  crape  upon  the  left  arm 
for  thirty  days. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Senate  communicate  these  Reso 
lutions  to  the  House  of  Representatives. 

"  Resolved,  That,  as  an  additional  mark  of  respect  for  the  memory  of 
the  deceased,  the  Senate  do  now  adjourn." 


MR.  SPEAKER,  —  It  cannot  be  too  late,  however  late  the 
hour,  to  pay  our  tribute  of  respect  and  affection  to  the 
memory  of  Zachariah  Chandler. 

There  is  a  thought  in  connection  with  his  life  and  the  history 
of  his  State  which  has  been  referred  to  by  the  gentleman  from 


;74  Z AC  HART  AH  CHANDLER. 

New  Jersey,1  and  which  may  be  still  further  developed.  It  only 
lacks  two  years  of  being  a  full  century  since  Lewis  Cass  was 
born,  and  he  and  Zachariah  Chandler  have  filled  seventy-three 
years  of  that  period  with  active  prominent  public  service.  And 
through  all  those  seventy-three  years  there  has  shone  like  a 
star,  in  both  their  lives,  the  influence  of  one  great  event. 

In  the  stormy  spring  of  1 86 1,  when  the  foundations  of  the 
republic  trembled  under  the  tread  of  assembling  armies,  I  made 
a  pilgrimage  to  the  home  of  the  venerable  Lewis  Cass,  who  had 
just  laid  down  his  great  office  as  chief  of  the  State  Department, 
and  for  an  hour  I  was  a  reverent  listener  to  his  words  of  wis 
dom.  And  in  that  conversation  he  gave  me  the  thought  which  I 
wish  to  record.  He  said  :  "You  remember,  young  man,  that  the 
Constitution  did  not  take  effect  until  nine  States  had  ratified  it. 
My  native  State  was  the  ninth.  It  hung  a  long  time  in  doubtful 
scale  whether  nine  would  agree ;  but  when,  at  last,  New  Hamp 
shire  ratified  the  Constitution,  it  was  a  day  of  great  rejoicing. 
My  mother  held  me,  a  little  boy  of  six  years,  in  her  arms  at  a 
window,  and  pointed  me  to  the  bonfires  that  were  blazing  in 
the  streets  of  Exeter,  and  told  me  that  the  people  were  cele 
brating  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution.  So,"  said  the  aged 
statesman,  "  I  saw  the  Constitution  born,  and  I  fear  I  may  see 
it  die." 

He  then  traced  briefly  the  singular  story  of  his  life.  He  said  : 
"  I  crossed  the  Allegheny  Mountains  and  settled  in  your  State 
of  Ohio  one  year  before  the  beginning  of  this  century.  Fifty- 
four  years  ago  I  sat  in  the  General  Assembly  of  Ohio.  In 
1807,  I  received  from  Thomas  Jefferson  a  commission  as  United 
States  Marshal,  which  I  still  preserve,  and  am  probably  the 
only  man  living  to-day  who  bears  a  commission  from  Jeffer 
son's  hand."  And  so,  running  over  the  great  retrospect  of  his 
life,  and  saddened  by  the  bloody  prospect  that  1861  brought  to 
his  mind,  he  said :  "  I  have  loved  the  Union  ever  since  the 
light  of  that  bonfire  greeted  my  eyes.  I  have  given  fifty-five 
years  of  my  life,  and  my  best  efforts,  to  its  preservation.  I  fear 
I  am  doomed  to  see  it  perish." 

But  a  better  fate  awaited  both  him  and  the  Union.  Another 
son  of  New  Hampshire  took  up  the  truncheon  of  power  from 
his  failing  hand,  and  with  the  vigor  of  youth  and  liberty  main 
tained  and  defended  the  Union  through  the  years  of  its  suprem- 

1  Mr.  Robeson. 


ZACHARIAH  CHANDLER.  775 

est  peril.  Zachariah  Chandler,  whose  birthplace  was  not  more 
than  thirty  miles  distant  from  that  of  Lewis  Cass,  entered  upon 
duty  as  Michigan's  Senator  with  the  vigor  of  young  and  hope 
ful  manhood.  And  he  pushed  forward  that  great  work  until 
his  last  hour,  and  died  in  the  full  glory  of  its  achievement.  The 
State  of  New  Hampshire  may  look  upon  this  day  and  these 
names  we  celebrate  as  her  special  pride  and  glory. 

The  great  Carlyle  has  said  that  the  best  gift  God  ever  gives 
to  men  is  an  eye  that  can  really  see ;  and  that  only  a  few  men 
are  recipients  of  this  gift.  I  venture  to  add,  that  an  equally 
rare  and  not  less  important  gift  is  the  courage  to  tell  just 
what  one  sees.  Besides  having  an  eye,  Zachariah  Chandler  was 
endowed  in  an  eminent  degree  with  the  courage  to  tell  just 
what  he  saw. 

If  from  these  seats,  Mr.  Speaker,  every  Representative  should 
speak  out  the  very  inmost  thought  of  the  people  he  represents, 
this  hall  would  be  luminous  with  the  spirit  and  aspirations  of 
the  American  people.  The  ruling  principle  of  Mr.  Chandler's 
life  was  this :  that  what  he  saw  in  public  affairs  he  uttered,  and 
having  said  it  stood  by  it,  not  with  malice  or  arrogance,  but 
with  the  sturdiness  of  thorough  conviction.  To  a  stranger  he 
might,  perhaps,  appear  rugged  and  harsh,  even  to  cruelty; 
yet  his  heart  was  full  of  gentleness  when  he  had  satisfied  his 
sense  of  duty. 

As  a  political  force,  Mr.  Chandler  may  be  classed  among  the 
Titanic  figures  of  history.  The  Norsemen  would  enroll  him  as 
one  of  the  heroes  in  the  halls  of  Valhalla.  They  would  asso 
ciate  him  with  Thor  and  his  thunder-hammer.  The  Romans 
would  associate  him  with  Vulcan,  who  made  the  earth  tremble 
under  the  weight  of  his  strokes. 

He  was  not  an  orator  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  fine  writing 
and  graceful  delivery;  but  in  the  clearness  of  his  conceptions, 
and  the  courage  and  force  with  which  he  uttered  them,  he  was 
a  most  remarkable  speaker.  What  man  have  we  known,  who, 
without  specially  cultivating  the  graces  of  oratory,  was  able  to 
condense  into  ten  minutes  a  more  enduring  speech  than  the 
one  which  he  delivered  at  the  extra  session  of  1879?  Under 
the  pressure  of  his  intense  mind,  an  hour  of  ordinary  speech 
was  condensed  into  a  sentence. 

Mr.  Chandler  was  emphatically  a  man  with  a  belief.  In  the 
minds  of  most  men  the  kingdom  of  opinion  is  divided  into  three 


7;6  Z AC  HART  AH  CHANDLER. 

territories,  —  the  territory  of  yes,  the  territory  of  no,  and  a 
broad,  unexplored  middle  ground  of  doubt.  That  middle 
ground  in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Chandler  was  very  narrow.  Nearly 
all  his  territory  was  occupied  by  positive  convictions.  On  most 
questions  his  mind  was  made  up  more  completely  than  that  of 
any  man  whom  I  have  known.  His  was  an  intense  nature,  — 

"  Dowered  with  the  hate  of  hate,  the  scorn  of  scorn, 
The  love  of  love." 

It  is  curious  to  observe  that,  as  a  general  rule,  long  service  in 
a  legislative  minority  unfits  men  for  the  duties  that  devolve 
upon  a  majority.  The  business  of  the  one  is  to  attack,  of  the 
other  to  defend ;  of  the  one  to  tear  down,  of  the  other  to  build 
up.  The  leaders  of  the  antislavery  struggle  in  this  country 
were,  perhaps,  the  most  skilful  in  assault  of  any  political  party 
in  our  history.  But  \Vhen,  after  years  of  service  in  the  minority, 
they  came  into  power,  but  few  of  their  prominent  leaders  were 
fit  for  the  constructive  work  of  statesmanship.  Mr.  Chandler 
was  one  of  that  small  number  who  displayed  in  constructive 
legislation  abilities  fully  equal  to  those  which  he  exhibited  as 
a  member  of  the  minority.  His  administration  of  the  Interior 
Department  was  an  ample  vindication  of  his  high  qualities  as 
an  executive  officer. 

This  Congress  will  miss  him  in  its  councils.  His  party  and 
his  State  will  greatly  miss  him.  I  know  he  is  sincerely  mourned 
in  my  own  State,  where,  within  three  weeks  of  the  time  of  his 
death,  I  had  the  honor  to  preside  over  the  largest  political 
assemblage  I  have  seen  in  many  years,  called  together  by  his 
name.  That  great  multitude  sat  at  his  feet,  and  listened  with 
reverence  and  enthusiasm. 

Reviewing  his  life  and  summing  up  his  qualities,  we  may 
justly  apply  to  him  the  words  which  the  Laureate  of  England 
applied  to  Wellington :  — 

"  O  iron  nerve,  to  true  occasion  true  ! 
O  fallen  at  length  that  tower  of  strength 
Which  stood  four-square  to  all  the  winds  that  blewl" 


OHN 


NOMINATION    OF  JOWN    SHERMAN 

SPEECH   DELIVERED   IN  THE   REPUBLICAN   NATIONAL 
CONVENTION,   AT  CHICAGO, 

JUNE  5,  1880. 


MR.  PRESIDENT,  —  I  have  witnessed  the  extraordinary 
scenes  of  this  Convention  with  deep  solicitude.  Nothing 
touches  my  heart  more  quickly  than  a  tribute  of  honor  to  a 
great  and  noble  character ;  but  as  I  sat  in  my  seat  and  witnessed 
this  demonstration,  this  assemblage  seemed  to  me  a  human 
ocean  in  tempest.  I  have  seen  the  sea  lashed  into  fury  and 
tossed  into  spray,  and  its  grandeur  moves  the  soul  of  the  dull 
est  man ;  but  I  remember  that  it  is  not  the  billows,  but  the 
calm  level  of  the  sea,  from  which  all  heights  and  depths  are 
measured.  When  the  storm  has  passed  and  the  hour  of  calm 
settles  on  the  ocean,  when  the  sunlight  bathes  its  peaceful  sur 
face,  then  the  astronomer  and  surveyo^take  the  level  from 
which  they  measure  all  terrestrial  heights  and  depths. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  your  present  temper  may  not 
mark  the  healthful  pulse  of  our  people.  When  your  enthusiasm 
has  passed,  when  the  emotions  of  this  hour  have  subsided,  we 
shall  find  below  the  storm  and  passion  that  calm  level  of  public 
opinion  from  which  the  thoughts  of  a  mighty  people  are  to  be 
measured,  and  by  which  their  final  action  will  be  determined. 

Not  here,  in  this  brilliant  circle  where  fifteen  thousand  men 
and  women  are  gathered,  is  the  destiny  of  the  republic  to  be 
decreed  for  the  next  four  years.  Not  here,  where  I  see  the  en 
thusiastic  faces  of  seven  hundred  and  fifty-six  delegates,  waiting 
to  cast  their  lots  into  the  urn  and  determine  the  choice  of  the 
republic ;  but  by  four  millions  of  Republican  firesides,  where 
the  thoughtful  voters,  with  wives  and  children  about  them,  with 
the  calm  thoughts  inspired  by  love  of  home  and  country,  with  the 
history  of  the  past,  the  hopes  of  the  future,  and  reverence  for  the 


778  NOMINATION  OF  JOHN  SHERMAN. 

great  men  who  have  adorned  and  blessed  our  nation  in  days 
gone  by,  burning  in  their  hearts,  —  there  God  prepares  the  ver 
dict  which  will  determine  the  wisdom  of  our  work  to-night. 
Not  in  Chicago,  in  the  heat  of  June,  but  at  the  ballot-boxes 
of  the  republic,  in  the  quiet  of  November,  after  the  silence  of 
deliberate  judgment,  will  this  question  be  settled.  And  now, 
gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  what  do  we  want? 

A  VOICE.     We  want  Garfield. 

Bear  with  me  a  moment.  "  Hear  me  for  my  cause,"  and  for 
a  moment  "  be  silent  that  you  may  hear." 

Twenty  five  years  ago  this  republic  was  bearing  and  wear 
ing  a  triple  chain  of  bondage.  Long  familiarity  with  traffic  in 
the  bodies  and  souls  of  men  had  paralyzed  the  consciences 
of  a  majority  of  our  people ;  the  narrowing  and  disintegrating 
doctrine  of  State  Sovereignty  had  shackled  and  weakened  the 
noblest  and  most  beneficent  powers  of  the  national  govern 
ment;  and  the  grasping  power  of  slavery  was  seizing  upon 
the  virgin  territories  of  the  West,  and  dragging  them  into  the 
den  of  eternal  bondage. 

At  that  crisis  the  Republican  party  was  born.  It  drew  its 
first  inspiration  from  that  fire  of  liberty  which  God  has  lighted 
in  every  human  heart,  and  which  all  the  powers  of  ignorance 
and  tyranny  can  never  wholly  extinguish.  The  Republican 
party  came  to  deliver  and  to  save.  It  entered  the  arena  where 
the  beleaguered  and  assailed  Territories  were  struggling  for 
freedom,  and  drew  around  them  the  sacred  circle  of  liberty, 
which  the  demon  of  Slavery  has  never  dared  to  cross.  It  made 
them  free  forever.  Strengthened  by  its  victory  on  the  frontier, 
the  young  party,  under  the  leadership  of  that  great  man  who 
on  this  spot,  twenty  years  ago,  was  made  its  chief,  entered  the 
national  Capitol,  and  assumed  the  high  duties  of  government. 
The  light  which  shone  from  its  banner  illumined  its  pathway 
to  power.  Every  slave-pen  and  the  shackles  of  every  slave 
within  the  shadow  of  the  Capitol  were  consumed  in  the  rekin 
dled  fire  of  freedom. 

Our  great  national  industries  by  cruel  and  calculating  neg 
lect  had  been  prostrated,  and  the  streams  of  revenue  flowed  in 
such  feeble  currents  that  the  treasury  itself  was  wellnigh  empty. 
The  money  of  the  people  consisted  mainly  of  the  wretched  notes 
of  two  thousand  uncontrolled  and  irresponsible  State  banking 


NOMINATION  OF  JOHN  SHERMAN.  779 

corporations,  which  were  filling  the  country  with  a  circulation 
that  poisoned,  rather  than  sustained,  the  life  of  business. 

The  Republican  party  changed  all  this.  It  abolished  the 
Babel  of  confusion,  and  gave  to  the  country  a  currency  as 
national  as  its  flag,  based  upon  the  sacred  faith  of  the  people. 
It  threw  its  protecting  arm  around  our  great  industries,  and 
they  stood  erect  with  new  life.  It  filled  with  the  spirit  of  true 
nationality  all  the  great  functions  of  the  government.  It  con 
fronted  a  rebellion  of  unexampled  magnitude,  with  slavery 
behind  it,  and,  under  God,  fought  the  final  battle  of  liberty  until 
the  victory  was  won. 

Then,  after  the  storms  of  battle,  were  heard  the  calm  words 
of  peace  spoken  by  the  conquering  nation,  saying  to  the  foe 
that  lay  prostrate  at  its  feet:  "  This  is  our  only  revenge,  —  that 
you  join  us  in  lifting  into  the  serene  firmament  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  to  shine  like  stars  for  ever  and  ever,  the  immortal  principles 
of  truth  and  justice :  that  all  men,  white  or  black,  shall  be  free, 
and  shall  stand  equal  before  the  law." 

Then  came  the  questions  of  reconstruction,  the  national  debt, 
and  the  keeping  of  the  public  faith.  In  the  settlement  of  these 
questions,  the  Republican  party  has  completed  its  twenty-five 
years  of  glorious  existence,  and  it  has  sent  us  here  to  prepare  it 
for  another  lustrum  of  duty  and  of  victory.  How  shall  we  ac 
complish  this  great  work?  We  cannot  do  it,  my  friends,  by 
assailing  our  Republican  brethren.  God  forbid  that  I  should  say 
one  word,  or  cast  one  shadow,  upon  any  name  on  the  roll  of  our 
heroes.  The  coming  fight  is  our  Thermopylae.  We  are  stand 
ing  upon  a  narrow  isthmus.  If  our  Spartan  hosts  are  united, 
we  can  withstand  all  the  Persians  that  the  Xerxes  of  Democracy 
can  bring  against  us.  Let  us  hold  our  ground  this  one  year,  and 
then  "  the  stars  in  their  courses  "  will  fight  for  us.  The  census 
will  bring  reinforcements  and  continued  power.  But  in  order 
to  win  victory  now,  we  want  the  vote  of  every  Republican,  —  of 
every  Grant  Republican,  and  every  Anti-Grant  Republican,  in 
America,  —  of  every  Blaine  man  and  every  Anti-Blaine  man. 
The  vote  of  every  follower  of  every  candidate  is  needed  to  make 
success  certain.  Therefore  I  say,  gentlemen  and  brethren,  we 
are  here  to  take  calm  counsel  together,  and  inquire  what  we 
shall  do. 

We  want  a  man  whose  life  and  opinions  embody  all  the 
achievements  of  which  I  have  spoken.  We  want  a  man  who, 


;8o  NOMINATION  OF  JOHN  SHERMAN.. 

standing  on  a  mountain  height,  traces  the  victorious  footsteps 
of  our  party  in  the  past,  and,  carrying  in  his  heart  the  memofy 
of  its  glorious  deeds,  looks  forward  prepared  to  meet  the  dan 
gers  to  come.  We  want  one  who  will  act  in  no  spirit  of  un- 
kindness  toward  those  we  lately  met  in  battle.  The  Republican 
party  offers  to  our  brethren  of  the  South  the  olive-branch  of 
peace,  and  invites  them  to  renewed  brotherhood  on  this  supreme 
condition,  —  that  it  shall  be  admitted  forever,  that  in  the  war 
for  the  Union  we  were  right  and  they  were  wrong.  On  that 
supreme  condition  we  meet  them  as  brethren,  and  ask  them  to 
share  with  us  the  blessings  and  honors  of  this  great  republic. 

Now,  gentlemen,  not  to  weary  you,  I  am  about  to  present  a 
name  for  your  consideration,  —  the  name  of  one  who  was  the 
comrade,  associate,  and  friend  of  nearly  all  the  noble  dead, 
whose  faces  look  down  upon  us  from  these  walls  to-night ;  1 
a  man  who  began  his  career  of  public  service  twenty-five  years 
ago,  — who  courageously  confronted  the  slave  power  in  the  days 
of  peril  on  the  plains  of  Kansas,  when  first  began  to  fall  the  red 
drops  of  that  bloody  shower  which  finally  swelled  into  the  deluge 
of  gore  in  the  late  rebellion.  He  bravely  stood  by  young  Kan 
sas,  and,  returning  to  his  seat  in  the  national  Legislature,  his 
pathway  through  all  the  subsequent  years  has  been  marked  by 
labors  worthily  performed  in  every  department  of  legislation. 

You  ask  for  his  monument.  I  point  you  to  twenty-five  years 
of  national  statutes.  Not  one  great,  beneficent  law  has  been 
placed  on  our  statute-books  without  his  intelligent  and  powerful 
aid.  He  aided  in  formulating  the  laws  to  raise  the  great  armies 
and  navies  which  carried  us  through  the  war.  His  hand  was 
seen  in  the  workmanship  of  those  statutes  that  restored  and 
brought  back  "  the  unity  and  married  calm  of  States."  His 
hand  was  in  all  that  great  legislation  that  created  the  war  cur 
rency,  and  in  the  still  greater  work  that  redeemed  the  promises 
of  the  government  and  made  the  currency  equal  to  gold.  When 
at  last  he  passed  from  the  halls  of  legislation  into  a  high  execu 
tive  office,  he  displayed  that  experience,  intelligence,  firmness, 
and  poise  of  character,  which  have  carried  us  through  a  stormy 
period  of  three  years,  with  one  half  the  public  press  crying 
"  Crucify  him  ! "  and  a  hostile  Congress  seeking  to  prevent  suc 
cess.  In  all  this  he  remained  unmoved  until  victory  crowned 

1  Referring  to  portraits  of  Lincoln,  Sumner,  Wade,  Chandler,  and  others,  hang 
ing  in  the  hall. 


NOMINATION  OF  JOHN  SHERMAN.  781 

him.  The  great  fiscal  affairs  of  the  nation,  and  the  vast  busi 
ness  interests  of  the  country,  he  guarded  and  preserved  while 
executing  the  law  of  resumption,  and  effected  its  object  without 
a  jar,  and  against  the  false  prophecies  of  one  half  of  the  press 
and  of  all  the  Democratic  party.  He  has  shown  himself  able 
to  meet  with  calmness  the  great  emergencies  of  the  govern 
ment.  For  twenty-five  years  he  has  trodden  the  perilous 
heights  of  public  duty,  and  against  all  the  shafts  of  malice  has 
borne  his  breast  unharmed.  He  has  stood  in  the  blaze  of  "  that 
fierce  light  that  beats  against  the  throne  " ;  but  its  fiercest  ray 
has  found  no  flaw  in  his  armor,  no  stain  upon  his  shield.  I  do 
not  present  him  as  a  better  Republican  or  a  better  man  than 
thousands  of  others  that  we  honor;  but  I  present  him  for  your 
deliberate  and  favorable  consideration.  I  nominate  John  Sher 
man,  of  Ohio. 


LETTER  ACCEPTING  THE   NOMINATION 
FOR  THE   PRESIDENCY. 


MENTOR,  OHIO,  July  12,  1880. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  On  the  evening  of  the  8th  of  June  last  I  had 
the  honor  to  receive  from  you,  in  the  presence  of  the 
committee  of  which  you  were  chairman,  the  official  announce 
ment  that  the  Republican  National  Convention  at  Chicago  had 
that  day  nominated  me  as  their  candidate  for  President  of  the 
United  States.  I  accept  the  nomination  with  gratitude  for  the 
confidence  it  implies,  and  with  a  deep  sense  of  the  responsibili 
ties  it  imposes.  I  cordially  endorse  the  principles  set  forth  in 
the  platform  adopted  by  the  Convention.  On  nearly  all  the 
subjects  of  which  it  treats,  my  opinions  are  on  record  among 
the  published  proceedings  of  Congress.  I  venture,  however,  to 
make  special  mention  of  some  of  the  principal  topics  which  are 
likely  to  become  subjects  of  discussion. 

Without  reviewing  the  controversies  which  have  been  settled 
during  the  last  twenty  years,  and  with  no  purpose  or  wish  to 
revive  the  passions  of  the  late  war,  it  should  be  said  that,  while 
Republicans  fully  recognize  and  will  strenuously  defend  all  the 
rights  retained  by  the  people,  and  all  the  rights  reserved  to  the 
States,  they  reject  the  pernicious  doctrine  of  State  supremacy 
which  so  long  crippled  the  functions  of  the  national  govern 
ment,  and  at  one  time  brought  the  Union  very  near  to  destruc 
tion.  They  insist  that  the  United  States  is  a  nation,  with  ample 
power  of  self-preservation ;  that  its  Constitution,  and  the  laws 
made  in  pursuance  thereof,  are  the  supreme  law  of  the  land ; 
that  the  right  of  the  nation  to  determine  the  method  by  which 
its  own  legislature  shall  be  created  cannot  be  surrendered 
without  abdicating  one  of  the  fundamental  powers  of  govern 
ment  ;  that  the  national  laws  relating  to  the  election  of  Repre 
sentatives  in  Congress  shall  neither  be  violated  nor  evaded ;  that 


LETTER    OF  ACCEPTANCE.  783 

every  elector  shall  be  permitted  freely  and  without  intimidation 
to  cast  his  lawful  ballot  at  such  election,  and  have  it  honestly 
counted,  and  that  the  potency  of  his  vote  shall  not  be  destroyed 
by  the  fraudulent  vote  of  any  other  person. 

The  best  thoughts  and  energies  of  our  people  should  be 
directed  to  those  great  questions  of  national  well-being  in  which 
all  have  a  common  interest.  Such  efforts  will  soonest  restore 
perfect  peace  to  those  who  were  lately  in  arms  against  each 
other,  for  justice  and  good-will  will  outlast  passion.  But  it  is 
certain  that  the  wounds  of  the  war  cannot  be  completely  healed, 
and  the  spirit  of  brotherhood  cannot  fully  pervade  the  whole 
country,  until  every  citizen,  rich  or  poor,  white  or  black,  is 
secure  in  the  free  and  equal  enjoyment  of  every  civil  and  politi 
cal  right  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution  and  the  laws.  Wher 
ever  the  enjoyment  of  these  rights  is  not'assured,  discontent  will 
prevail,  immigration  will  cease,  and  the  social  and  industrial 
forces  will  continue  to  be  disturbed  by  the  migration  of  laborers 
and  the  consequent  diminution  of  prosperity.  The  national 
government  should  exercise  all  its  constitutional  authority  to 
put  an  end  to  these  evils ;  for  all  the  people  and  all  the  States 
are  members  of  one  body,  and  no  member  can  suffer  without 
injury  to  all.  The  most  serious  evils  which  now  afflict  the  South 
arise  from  the  fact  that  there  is  not  such  freedom  and  toleration 
of  political  opinion  and  action  that  the  minority  party  can  ex 
ercise  an  effective  and  wholesome  restraint  upon  the  party  in 
power.  Without  such  restraint  party  rule  becomes  tyrannical 
and  corrupt.  The  prosperity  which  is  made  possible  in  the 
South  by  its  great  advantage  of  soil  and  climate  will  never  be 
realized  until  every  voter  can  freely  and  safely  support  any  party 
he  pleases. 

Next  in  importance  to  freedom  and  justice  is  popular  educa 
tion,  without  which  neither  freedom  nor  justice  can  be  perma 
nently  maintained.  Its  interests  are  intrusted  to  the  States, 
and  to  the  voluntary  action  of  the  people.  Whatever  help  the 
nation  can  justly  afford  should  be  generously  given  to  aid 
the  States  in  supporting  common  schools;  but  it  would  be 
unjust  to  our  people,  and  dangerous  to  our  institutions,  to 
apply  any  portion  of  the  revenues  of  the  nation,  or  of  the 
States,  to  the  support  of  sectarian  schools.  The  separation  of 
the  Church  and  the  State  in  everything  relating  to  taxation 
should  be  absolute. 


784  LETTER    OF  ACCEPTANCE. 

On  the  subject  of  national  finances,  my  views  have  been  so 
frequently  and  fully  expressed  that  little  is  needed  in  the  way  of 
additional  statement.  The  public  debt  is  now  so  well  secured, 
and  the  rate  of  annual  interest  has  been  so  reduced  by  refund 
ing,  that  rigid  economy  in  expenditures,  and  the  faithful  appli 
cation  of  our  surplus  revenues  to  the  payment  of  the  principal 
of  the  debt,  will  gradually,  but  certainly,  free  the  people  from  its 
burdens,  and  close  with  honor  the  financial  chapter  of  the  war. 
At  the  same  time,  the  government  can  provide  for  all  its  ordinary 
expenditures,  and  discharge  its  sacred  obligations  to  the  soldiers 
of  the  Union,  and  to  the  widows  and  orphans  of  those  who  fell 
in  its  defence.  The  resumption  of  specie  payments,  which  the 
Republican  party  so  courageously  and  successfully  accomplished, 
has  removed  from  the  field  of  controversy  many  questions  that 
long  and  seriously  disturbed  the  credit  of  the  government  and 
the  business  of  the  country.  Our  paper  currency  is  now  as 
national  as  the  flag,  and  resumption  has  not  only  made  it  every 
where  equal  to  coin,  but  has  brought  into  use  our  store  of  gold 
and  silver.  The  circulating  medium  is  more  abundant  than 
ever  before,  and  we  need  only  to  maintain  the  equality  of 
all  our  dollars  to  insure  to  labor  and  capital  a  measure  of 
value  from  the  use  of  which  no  one  can  suffer  loss.  The  great 
prosperity  which  the  country  is  now  enjoying  should  not 
be  endangered  by  any  violent  changes  or  doubtful  financial 
experiments. 

In  reference  to  our  customs  laws  a  policy  should  be  pursued 
which  will  bring  revenues  to  the  treasury,  and  will  enable  the 
labor  and  capital  employed  in  our  great  industries  to  compete 
fairly  in  our  own  markets  with  the  labor  and  capital  of  foreign 
producers.  We  legislate  for  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
and  not  for  the  whole  world ;  and  it  is  our  glory  that  the  Amer 
ican  laborer  is  more  intelligent  and  better  paid  than  his  foreign 
competitor.  Our  country  cannot  be  independent  unless  its 
people,  with  their  abundant  natural  resources,  possess  the  requi 
site  skill  at  any  time  to  clothe,  arm,  and  equip  themselves  for 
war,  and  in  time  of  peace  to  produce  all  the  necessary  imple 
ments  of  labor.  It  was  the  manifest  intention  of  the  founders 
of  the  government  to  provide  for  the  common  defence,  not  by 
standing  armies  alone,  but  by  raising  among  the  people  a  greater 
army  of  artisans,  whose  intelligence  and  skill  should  powerfully 
contribute  to  the  safety  and  glory  of  the  nation. 


LETTER    OF  ACCEPTANCE.  785 

Fortunately  for  the  interests  of  commerce,  there  is  no  longer 
any  formidable  opposition  to  appropriations  for  the  improve 
ment  of  our  harbors  and  great  navigable  rivers,  provided  that 
the  expenditures  for  that  purpose  are  strictly  limited  to  works 
of  national  importance.  The  Mississippi  River,  with  its  great 
tributaries,  is  of  such  vital  importance  to  so  many  millions  of 
people  that  the  safety  of  its  navigation  requires  exceptional 
consideration.  In  order  to  secure  to  the  nation  the  control  of 
all  its  waters,  President  Jefferson  negotiated  the  purchase  of  a 
vast  territory  extending  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean.1  The  wisdom  of  Congress  should  be  invoked  to  devise 
some  plan  by  which  that  great  river  shall  cease  to  be  a  terror 
to  those  who  dwell  upon  its  banks,  and  by  which  its  shipping 
may  safely  carry  the  industrial  products  of  twenty-five  millions 
of  people.  The  interests  of  agriculture,  which  is  the  basis  of 
all  our  material  prosperity,  and  in  which  seven  twelfths  of  our 
population  are  engaged,  as  well  as  the  interests  of  manufactures 
and  commerce,  demand  that  the  facilities  for  cheap  trans 
portation  shall  be  increased  by  the  use  of  all  our  great  water 
courses. 

The  material  interests  of  this  country,  the  traditions  of  its 
settlement,  and  the  sentiment  of  our  people  have  led  the  gov 
ernment  to  offer  the  widest  hospitality  to  emigrants  who  seek 
our  shores  for  new  and  happier  homes,  willing  to  share  the  bur 
dens  as  well  as  the  benefits  of  our  society,  and  intending  that 
their  posterity  shall  become  an  undistinguishable  part  of  our 
population.  The  recent  movement  of  the  Chinese  to  our  Pacific 
coast  partakes  but  little  of  the  qualities  of  such  an  immigration, 
either  in  its  purposes  or  its  result.  It  is  too  much  like  an  im 
portation  to  be  welcomed  without  restriction ;  too  much  like  an 
invasion  to  be  looked  upon  without  solicitude.  We  cannot  con 
sent  to  allow  any  form  of  servile  labor  to  be  introduced  among 
us  under  the  guise  of  immigration.  Recognizing  the  gravity  of 
this  subject,  the  present  Administration,  supported  by  Congress, 
has  sent  to  China  a  commission  of  distinguished  citizens  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  such  a  modification  of  the  existing  treaty  as 
will  prevent  the  evils  likely  to  arise  from  the  present, situation. 

1  This  statement  touching  the  original  extent  of  the  Louisiana  purchase,  which 
is,  to  say  the  least,  involved  in  controversy,  was  founded  by  Mr.  Garfield  upon  the 
map  found  in  the  "  Statistical  Atlas  of  the  United  States,  based  on  the  Ninth 
Census,  1870,"  Plate  XV. 

VOL.    II.  50 


;86  LETTER    OF  ACCEPTANCE. 

It  is  confidently  believed  that  these  diplomatic  negotiations  will 
be  successful,  without  the  loss  of  commercial  intercourse  between 
the  two  powers,  which  promises  a  great  increase  of  reciprocal 
trade  and  the  enlargement  of  our  markets.  Should  these  efforts 
fail,  it  will  be  the  duty  of  Congress  to  mitigate  the  evils  already 
felt,  and  prevent  their  increase,  by  such  restrictions  as,  with 
out  violence  or  injustice,  will  place  upon  a  sure  foundation 
the  peace  of  our  communities  and  the  freedom  and  dignity 
of  labor. 

The  appointment  of  citizens  to  the  various  executive  and 
judicial  offices  of  the  government  is,  perhaps,  the  most  difficult 
of  all  duties  which  the  Constitution  has  imposed  on  the  Execu 
tive.  The  Convention  wisely  demands  that  Congress  shall  co 
operate  with  the  executive  departments  in  placing  the  civil 
service  on  a  better  basis.  Experience  has  proved  that,  with  our 
frequent  changes  of  administration,  no  system  of  reform  can  be 
made  effective  and  permanent  without  the  aid  of  legislation. 
Appointments  to  the  military  and  naval  service  are  so  regulated 
by  law  and  custom  as  to  leave  but  little  ground  for  complaint 
It  may  not  be  wise  to  make  similar  regulations  by  law  for  the 
civil  service.  But,  without  invading  the  authority  or  necessary 
discretion  of  the  Executive,  Congress  should  devise  a  method 
that  will  determine  the  tenure  of  office,  and  greatly  reduce  the 
uncertainty  which  makes  that  service  so  unsatisfactory.  With 
out  depriving  any  officer  of  his  rights  as  a  citizen,  the  govern 
ment  should  require  him  to  discharge  all  his  official  duties  with 
intelligence,  efficiency,  and  faithfulness.  To  select  wisely  from 
our  vast  population  those  who  are  best  fitted  for  the  many  offices 
to  be  filled,  requires  an  acquaintance  far  beyond  the  range  of 
any  one  man.  The  Executive  should,  therefore,  seek  and  re 
ceive  the  information  and  assistance  of  those  whose  knowledge 
of  the  communities  in  which  the.  duties  are  to  be  performed  best 
qualifies  them  to  aid  in  making  the  wisest  choice. 

The  doctrines  announced  by  the  Chicago  Convention  are  not 
the  temporary  devices  of  a  party  to  attract  votes  and  carry  an 
election.  They  are  deliberate  convictions,  resulting  from  a  care 
ful  study  of  the  spirit  of  our  institutions,  the  events  of  our  his 
tory,  and  the  best  impulses  of  our  people.  In  my  judgment, 
these  principles  should  control  the  legislation  and  administra 
tion  of  the  government.  In  any  event,  they  will  guide  my  con 
duct  until  experience  points  out  a  better  way. 


LETTER    OF  ACCEPTANCE.  787 

If  elected,  it  will  be  my  purpose  to  enforce  strict  obedience  to 
the  Constitution  and  the  laws,  and  to  promote,  as  best  I  may, 
the  interest  and  honor  of  the  whole  country,  relying  for  support 
upon  the  wisdom  of  Congress,  the  intelligence  and  patriotism  of 
the  people,  and  the  favor  of  God. 

With  great  respect,  I  am  very  truly  yours, 

JAMES  A.  GARFIELD. 

To  THE  HON.  GEORGE  F.  HOAR, 

President  of  the  Republican  National  Convention. 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

DELIVERED   ON    THE    EAST    PORTICO   OF   THE  CAPITOL, 
MARCH  4,  1881. 


1  BELLOW-CITIZENS,  — We  stand  to-day  upon  an  eminence 
JL  which  overlooks  a  hundred  years  of  national  life,  —  a  cen 
tury  crowded  with  perils,  but  crowned  with  the  triumphs  of 
liberty  and  law.  Before  continuing  the  onward  march,  let  us 
pause  on  this  height,  for  a  moment,  to  strengthen  our  faith  and 
to  renew  our  hope  by  a  glance  at  the  pathway  along  which  our 
people  have  travelled. 

It  is  now  three  days  more  than  a  hundred  years  since  the 
adoption  of  the  first  written  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  — 
the  Articles  of  Confederation  and  Perpetual  Union.  The  new 
republic  was  then  beset  with  dangers  on  every  hand.  It  had 
not  conquered  a  place  in  the  family  of  nations.  The  decisive 
battle  of  the  war  for  independence,  whose  centennial  anniversary 
will  soon  be  gratefully  celebrated  at  Yorktown,  had  not  yet  been 
fought.  The  colonists  were  struggling,  not  only  against  the 
armies  of  a  great  nation,  but  against  the  settled  opinions  of 
mankind ;  for  the  world  did  not  then  believe  that  the  supreme 
authority  of  government  could  be  safely  intrusted  to  the  guar 
dianship  of  the  people  themselves. 

We  cannot  overestimate  the  fervent  love  of  liberty,  the  intel 
ligent  courage,  and  the  saving  common-sense  with  which  our 
fathers  made  the  great  experiment  of  self-government.  When 
they  found,  after  a  short  trial,  that  the  Confederacy  of  States 
was  too  weak  to  meet  the  necessities  of  a  vigorous  and  expand 
ing  republic,  they  boldly  set  it  aside,  and  in  its  stead  established 
a  National  Union,  founded  directly  upon  the  will  of  the  people, 
and  endowed  with  full  power  of  self-preservation  and  with  ample 
authority  for  the  accomplishment  of  its  great  objects. 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS.  789 

Under  this  Constitution  the  boundaries  of  freedom  have  been 
enlarged,  the  foundations  of  order  and  peace  have  been  strength 
ened,  and  the  growth  of  our  people  in  all  the  better  elements  of 
national  life  has  vindicated  the  wisdom  of  the  founders  and 
given  new  hope  to  their  descendants.  Under  this  Constitution 
our  people  long  ago  made  themselves  safe  against  danger  from 
without,  and  secured  for  their  mariners  and  flag  equality  of  rights 
on  all  the  seas.  Under  this  Constitution,  twenty-five  States  have 
been  added  to  the  Union,  with  constitutions  and  laws,  framed 
and  enforced  by  their  own  citizens,  to  secure  the  manifold  bless 
ings  of  local  self-government.  The  jurisdiction  of  this  Consti 
tution  now  covers  an  area  fifty  times  greater  than  that  of  the 
original  thirteen  States,  and  a  population  twenty  times  greater 
than  that  of  1780. 

The  supreme  trial  of  the  Constitution  came  at  last  under  the 
tremendous  pressure  of  civil  war.  We  ourselves  are  witnesses 
that  the  Union  emerged  from  the  blood  and  fire  of  that  conflict 
purified  and  made  stronger  for  all  the  beneficent  purposes  of 
good  government. 

And  now,  at  the  close  of  this  first  century  of  growth,  with  the 
inspirations  of  its  history  in  their  hearts,  our  people  have  lately 
reviewed  the  condition  of  the  nation,  passed  judgment  upon  the 
conduct  and  opinions  of  political  parties,  and  registered  their  will 
concerning  the  future  administration  of  the  government.  To 
interpret  and  to  execute  that  will,  in  accordance  with  the  Con 
stitution,  is  the  paramount  duty  of  the  Executive. 

Even  from  this  brief  review  it  is  manifest  that  the  nation  is 
resolutely  facing  to  the  front,  resolved  to  employ  its  best  energies 
in  developing  the  great  possibilities  of  the  future.  Sacredly 
preserving  whatever  has  been  gained  to  liberty  and  good  gov 
ernment  during  the  century,  our  people  are  determined  to  leave 
behind  them  all  those  bitter  controversies  concerning  things 
which  have  been  irrevocably  settled,  and  the  further  discussion 
of  which  can  only  stir  up  strife  and  delay  the  onward  march. 

The  supremacy  of  the  nation  and  its  laws  should  be  no  longer 
a  subject  of  debate.  That  discussion  which  for  half  a  century 
threatened  the  existence  of  the  Union  was  closed  at  last  in  the 
high  court  of  war  by  a  decree  from  which  there  is  no  appeal, 
that  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  made  in  pursuance  thereof 
are,  and  shall  continue  to  be,  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  bind 
ing  alike  upon  the  States  and  upon  the  people.  This  decree 


790  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

does  not  disturb  the  autonomy  of  the  States,  nor  interfere  with 
any  of  their  necessary  rights  of  local  self-government,  but  it 
does  fix  and  establish  the  permanent  supremacy  of  the  Union. 

The  will  of  the  nation,  speaking  with  the  voice  of  battle  and 
1  through  the  amended  Constitution,  has  fulfilled  the  great  prom 
ise  of  1776,  by  proclaiming  "  liberty  throughout  the  land  to  all 
the  inhabitants  thereof." 

The  elevation  of  the  negro  race  from  slavery  to  the  full  rights 
of  citizenship  is  the  most  important  political  change  we  have 
known  since  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  1787.  No 
thoughtful  man  can  fail  to  appreciate  its  beneficent  effects  upon 
our  institutions  and  people.  It  has  freed  us  from  the  perpetual 
danger  of  war  and  dissolution.  It  has  added  immensely  to 
the  moral  and  industrial  forces  of  our  people.  It  has  liber 
ated  the  master,  as  well  as  the  slave,  from  a  relation  which 
wronged  and  enfeebled  both.  It  has  surrendered  to  their  own 
guardianship  the  manhood  of  more  than  five  millions  of  people, 
and  has  opened  to  each  one  of  them  a  career  of  freedom  and  use 
fulness.  It  has  given  new  inspiration  to  the  power  of  self-help 
in  both  races,  by  making  labor  more  honorable  to  the  one  and 
more  necessary  to  the  other.  The  influence  of  this  force  will 
grow  greater  and  bear  richer  fruit  with  the  coming  years. 

No  doubt  this  great  change  has  caused  serious  disturbance 
to  our  Southern  communities.  This  is  to  be  deplored,  though 
it  was  perhaps  unavoidable.  But  those  who  resisted  the  change 
should  remember  that,  under  our  institutions,  there  was  no 
middle  ground  for  the  negro  race  between  slavery  and  equal 
citizenship.  There  can  be  no  permanent  disfranchised  peas 
antry  in  the  United  States.  Freedom  can  never  yield  its  fulness 
of  blessings  so  long  as  the  law  or  its  administration  places  the 
smallest  obstacle  in  the  pathway  of  any  virtuous  citizen. 

The  emancipated  race  has  already  made  remarkable  progress. 
With  unquestioning  devotion  to  the  Union,  with  a  patience  and 
gentleness  not  born  of  fear,  they  have  "  followed  the  light  as 
God  gave  them  to  see  the  light."  They  are  rapidly  laying  the 
material  foundations  of  self-support,  widening  their  circle  of 
intelligence,  and  beginning  to  enjoy  the  blessings  that  gather 
around  the  homes  of  the  industrious  poor.  They  deserve  the 
generous  encouragement  of  all  good  men.  So  far  as  my  au 
thority  lawfully  extends,  they  shall  enjoy  the  full  and  equal  pro 
tection  of  the  Constitution  and  the  laws. 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS.  791 

The  free  enjoyment  of  equal  suffrage  is  still  in  question,  and 
a  frank  statement  of  the  issue  may  aid  its  solution.  It  is  al 
leged  that  in  many  communities  negro  citizens  are  practically 
denied  the  freedom  of  the  ballot.  In  so  far  as  the  truth  of  this 
allegation  is  admitted,  it  is  answered  that  in  many  places  honest 
local  government  is  impossible  if  the  mass  of  uneducated 
negroes  are  allowed  to  vote.  These  are  grave  allegations.  So 
far  as  the  latter  is  true,  it  is  the  only  palliation  that  can  be 
offered  for  opposing  the  freedom  of  the  ballot.  Bad  local  gov 
ernment  is  certainly  a  great  evil,  which  ought  to  be  prevented ; 
but  to  violate  the  freedom  and  sanctity  of  the  suffrage  is  more 
than  an  evil,  —  it  is  a  crime  which,  if  persisted  in,  will  destroy 
the  government  itself.  Suicide  is  not  a  remedy.  If  in  other 
lands  it  be  high-treason  to  compass  the  death  of  the  king,  it 
shall  be  counted  no  less  a  crime  here  to  strangle  our  sovereign 
power  and  stifle  its  voice. 

It  has  been  said  that  unsettled  questions  have  no  pity  for  the 
repose  of  nations.  It  should  be  said  with  the  utmost  emphasis, 
that  this  question  of  the  suffrage  will  never  give  repose  or  safety 
to  the  State  or  to  the  nation  until  each  within  its  own  jurisdic 
tion  makes  and  keeps  the  ballot  free  and  pure  by  the  strong 
sanctions  of  the  law. 

But  the  danger  which  arises  from  ignorance  in  the  voter  can 
not  be  denied^  It  covers  a  field  far  wider  than  that  of  negro 
suffrage  and  the  present  condition  of  the  race.  It  is  a  danger 
that  lurks  and  hides  in  the  sources  and  fountains  of  power  in 
every  State.  We  have  no  standard  by  which  to  measure  the 
disaster  that  may  be  brought  upon  us  by  ignorance  and  vice  in 
the  citizen,  when  joined  to  corruption  and  fraud  in  the  suffrage. 

The  voters  of  the  Union,  who  make  and  unmake  constitutions, 
and  upon  whose  will  hang  the  destinies  of  our  governments,  can 
transmit  their  supreme  authority  to  no  successors  save  the  com 
ing  generation  of  voters,  who  are  the  sole  heirs  of  sovereign 
power.  If  that  generation  comes  to  its  inheritance  blinded  by 
ignorance  and  corrupted  by  vice,  the  fall  of  the  republic  will  be 
certain  and  remediless.  The  census  has  already  sounded  the 
alarm  in  the  appalling  figures  which  mark  how  dangerously  high 
the  tide  of  illiteracy  has  risen  among  our  voters  and  their  children. 
To  the  South  this  question  is  of  supreme  importance.  But  the 
responsibility  for  the  existence  of  slavery  did  not  rest  upon  the 
South  alone.  The  nation  itself  is  responsible  for  the  extension 


792 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 


of  the  suffrage,  and  is  under  special  obligations  to  aid  in  remov 
ing  the  illiteracy  which  it  has  added  to  the  voting  population. 
For  the  North  and  South  alike  there  is  but  one  remedy.  All 
the  constitutional  power  of  the  nation  and  of  the  States,  and  all 
the  volunteer  forces  of  the  people,  should  be  summoned  to  meet 
this  danger  by  the  saving  influence  of  universal  education. 

It  is  the  high  privilege  and  sacred  duty  of  those  now  living  to 
educate  their  successors,  and  fit  them,  by  intelligence  and  virtue, 
for  the  inheritance  which  awaits  them.  In  this  beneficent  work 
sections  and  races  should  be  forgotten,  and  partisanship  should 
be  unknown.  Let  our  people  find  a  new  meaning  in  the  divine 
oracle  which  declares  that  "  a  little  child  shall  lead  them  " ;  for 
our  own  little  children  will  soon  control  the  destinies  of  the 
republic. 

My  countrymen,  we  do  not  now  differ  in  our  judgment  con 
cerning  the  controversies  of  past  generations,  and  fifty  years 
hence  our  children  will  not  be  divided  in  their  opinions  concern- 
•  ing  our  controversies.  They  will  surely  bless  their  fathers  and 
their  fathers'  God  that  the  Union  was  preserved,  that  slavery  was 
\  overthrown,  and  that  both  races  were  made  equal  before  the  law. 
We  may  hasten  or  we  may  retard,  but  we  cannot  prevent,  the 
final  reconciliation.  Is  it  not  possible  for  us  now  to  make  a  truce 
with  time  by  anticipating  and  accepting  its  inevitable  verdict? 

Enterprises  of  the  highest  importance  to  our  moral  and  mate 
rial  well-being  invite  us,  and  offer  ample  employment  for  our 
best  powers.  Let  all  our  people,  leaving  behind  them  the  bat 
tle-fields  of  dead  issues,  move  forward,  and,  in  the  strength  of 
liberty  and  the  restored  Union,  win  the  grander  victories  of 
peace.  The  prosperity  which  now  prevails  is  without  a  parallel 
in  our  history.  Fruitful  seasons  have  done  much  to  secure  it, 
but  they  have  not  done  all.  The  preservation  of  the  public 
credit  and  the  resumption  of  specie  payments  so  successfully 
attained  by  the  administration  of  my  predecessors  have  enabled 
our  people  to  secure  the  blessings  which  the  seasons  brought. 

By  the  experience  of  commercial  nations  in  all  ages,  it  has 
been  found  that  gold  and  silver  afford  the  only  safe  foundation 
for  a  monetary  system.  Confusion  has  recently  been  created  by 
variations  in  the  relative  value  of  the  two  metals.  But  I  confi 
dently  believe  that  arrangements  can  be  made  between  the  lead 
ing  commercial  nations  which  will  secure  the  general  use  of  both 
metals.  Congress  should  provide  that  the  compulsory  coinage 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 


793 


of  silver  now  required  by  law  may  not  disturb  our  monetary 
system,  and  that  neither  metal  shall  be  driven  out  of  circulation. 
If  possible,  such  an  adjustment  should  be  made  that  the  pur 
chasing  power  of  every  coined  dollar  will  be  exactly  equal  to 
its  debt-paying  power  in  all  the  markets  of  the  world. 

The  chief  duty  of  the  national  government,  in  connection 
with  the  currency  of  the  country,  is  to  coin  money  and  to  de 
clare  its  value.  Grave  doubts  have  been  entertained  whether 
Congress  is  authorized  by  the  Constitution  to  make  any  form  of 
paper  money  a  legal  tender.  The  present  issue  of  United  States 
notes  has  been  sustained  by  the  necessities  of  war;  but  such 
paper  should  depend  for  its  value  and  currency  upon  its  con 
venience  in  use  and  its  prompt  redemption  in  coin  at  the  will  of 
the  holder,  and  not  upon  its  compulsory  circulation.  These 
notes  are  not  money,  but  promises  to  pay  money.  If  the  hold 
ers  demand  it,  the  promise  should  be  kept. 

The  refunding  of  the  national  debt  at  a  lower  rate  of  interest 
should  be  accomplished  without  compelling  the  withdrawal  of 
the  national  bank  notes,  and  thus  disturbing  the  business  of  the 
country. 

I  venture  to  refer  to  the  position  I  have  occupied  on  financial 
questions  during  a  long  service  in  Congress,  and  to  say  that  time 
and  experience  have  strengthened  the  opinions  I  have  so  often 
expressed  on  these  subjects.  The  finances  of  the  government 
shall  suffer  no  detriment  which  it  may  be  possible  for  my 
administration  to  prevent. 

The  interests  of  agriculture  deserve  more  attention  from  the 
government  than  they  have  yet  received.  The  farms  of  the 
United  States  afford  homes  and  employment  for  more  than  one 
half  our  people,  and  furnish  much  the  larger  part  of  all  our 
exports.  As  the  government  lights  our  coasts  for  the  protection 
of  mariners  and  for  the  benefit  of  commerce,  so  it  should  give 
to  the  tillers  of  the  soil  the  best  lights  of  practical  science  and 
experience. 

Our  manufactures  are  rapidly  making  us  industrially  inde 
pendent,  and  are  opening  to  capital  and  labor  new  and  profitable 
fields  of  employment.  Their  steady  and  healthy  growth  should 
still  be  maintained.  Our  facilities  for  transportation  should  be 
promoted  by  the  continued  improvement  of  our  harbors  and 
great  interior  water-ways,  and  by  the  increase  of  our  tonnage 
on  the  ocean. 


794  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

The  development  of  the  world's  commerce  has  led  to  an 
urgent  demand  for  shortening  the  great  sea  voyage  around  Cape 
Horn  by  constructing  ship-canals  or  railways  across  the  isthmus 
which  unites  the  continents.  Various  plans  to  this  end  have 
been  suggested,  and  will  need  consideration ;  but  none  of  them 
has  been  sufficiently  matured  to  warrant  the  United  States  in 
extending  pecuniary  aid.  The  subject,  however,  is  one  which 
will  immediately  engage  the  attention  of  the  government,  with  a 
view  to  a  thorough  protection  of  American  interests.  We  shall 
urge  no  narrow  policy,  nor  seek  peculiar  or  exclusive  privileges 
in  any  commercial  route ;  but,  in  the  language  of  my  prede 
cessor,  I  believe  it  to  be  "the  right  and  duty  of  the  United  States 
to  assert  and  maintain  such  supervision  and  authority  over  any 
interoceanic  canal  across  the  isthmus  that  connects  North  and 
South  America  as  will  protect  our  national  interests." 

The  Constitution  guarantees  absolute  religious  freedom. 
Congress  is  prohibited  from  making  any  law  respecting  an  es 
tablishment  of  religion,  or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof. 
The  Territories  of  the  United  States  are  subject  to  the  direct 
legislative  authority  of  Congress ;  and  hence  the  general  gov 
ernment  is  responsible  for  the  violation  of  the  Constitution  in 
any  of  them.  It  is  therefore  a  reproach  to  the  government, 
that,  in  the  most  populous  of  the  Territories,  the  constitutional 
guarantee  is  not  enjoyed  by  the  people,  and  the  authority  of 
Congress  is  set  at  naught.  The  Mormon  Church  not  only 
offends  the  moral  sense  of  mankind  by  sanctioning  polygamy, 
but  prevents  the  administration  of  justice  through  the  ordinary 
instrumentalities  of  law. 

In  my  judgment,  it  is  the  duty  of  Congress,  while  respecting 
to  the  uttermost  the  conscientious  convictions  and  religious 
scruples  of  every  citizen,  to  prohibit  within  its  jurisdiction  all 
criminal  practices,  especially  of  that  class  which  destroy  the 
family  relations  and  endanger  social  order.  Nor  can  any  ec 
clesiastical  organization  be  safely  permitted  to  usurp  in  the 
smallest  degree  the  functions  and  powers  of  the  national  gov 
ernment. 

The  civil  service  can  never  be  placed  on  a  satisfactory  basis 
until  it  is  regulated  by  law.  For  the  good  of  the  service  itself, 
for  the  protection  of  those  who  are  intrusted  with  the  appointing 
power  against  the  waste  of  time  and  obstruction  to  the  public 
business  caused  by  the  inordinate  pressure  for  place,  and  for  the 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS.  795 

protection  of  incumbents  against  intrigue  and  wrong,  I  shall,  at 
the  proper  time,  ask  Congress  to  fix  the  tenure  of  the  minor 
offices  of  the  several  Executive  Departments,  and  to  prescribe 
the  grounds  upon  which  removals  shall  be  made  during  the 
terms  for  which  incumbents  have  been  appointed. 

Finally,  acting  always  within  the  authority  and  limitations  of 
the  Constitution,  invading  neither  the  rights  of  the  States  nor 
the  reserved  rights  of  the  people,  it  shall  be  the  purpose  of  my 
administration  to  maintain  the  authority  of  the  nation  in_  all 
places  within  its  jurisdiction ;  to  enforce  obedience  to  all  the 
laws  of  the  Union  in  the  interests  of  all  the  people ;  to  demand 
rigid  economy  in  all  the  expenditures  of  the  government ;  and 
to  require  the  honest  and  faithful  service  of  all  executive  officers, 
remembering  that  the  offices  were  created,  not  for  the  benefit  of 
incumbents  or  their  supporters,  but  for  the  service  of  the  gov 
ernment 

And  now,  fellow-citizens,  I  am  about  to  assume  the  great  trust 
which  you  have  committed  to  my  hands.  I  appeal  to  you  for 
that  earnest  and  thoughtful  support  which  makes  this  govern 
ment  in  fact,  as  it  is  in  law,  a  government  of  the  people. 

I  shall  greatly  rely  upon  the  wisdom  and  patriotism  of  Con 
gress,  and  of  those  who  may  share  with  me  the  responsibilities 
and  duties  of  administration.  And,  above  all,  upon  our  efforts 
to  promote  the  welfare  of  this  great  people  and  their  govern 
ment,  I  reverently  invoke  the  support  and  blessings  of  Almighty 
God. 


INDEX. 


ACHENWALL,  Prof.  Gottfried,  originates 

the  word  "statistics,"  i.  445,  452. 
Adams,  C.  F.,  letter  of  instructions  to,  ii. 

537- 

Adams,  C.  F.,  Jr.,  on  railroads,  ii.  57,  58, 
62. 

Adams,  John,  i.  527,  ii.  392,  475;  on  edu 
cation,  i.  139,  ii.  19;  on  corruption  in 
1776,  ii.  386  ;  in  Congress  at  New  York, 
466  ;  in  Continental  Congress,  467  ;  on 
paper  money,  516;  complains  of  the 
press  in  Massachusetts,  584. 

Adams,  John  Q.,  i.  598,  599,  602,  ii.  361 ; 
on  money  bills,  i.  688 ;  early  life  con 
trasted  with  Lincoln's,  ii.  292 ;  elected 
President,  480 ;  in  the  House,  ib.  ;  in 
favor  of  tariff,  554. 

Adams,  Samuel,  statue  of,  ii.  388 ;  re 
marks  on,  388-392  j  in  Continental  Con 
gress,  467,  469 ;  Galloway  on,  488. 

Agassiz,  Prof.  Louis,  remarks  on  death  of, 
ii.  94,  95. 

Agriculture,  Address  on  American,  i.  632 
-642 ;  wealth  produced  by,  636 ;  part  in 
foreign  trade,  637 ;  decrease  of  farming 
population,  639 ;  problem  to  solve,  640. 

Alison,  Sir  Archibald,  quoted,  i.  25  ;  pam 
phlet  on  currency,  ii.  254,  255,  499. 

Allen,  Ethan,  ii.  469. 

Allen,  Gov.,  of  Ohio,  on  money,  ii.  251. 

Allison,  W.  B.,  of  Iowa,  i.  124,  187,  536, 
576. 

Ames,  Fisher,  on  powers  of  Congress,  ii. 
721,722. 

Ambler,  J.  A.,  of  Ohio,  i.  535. 

American  Jurist,  quoted,  ii.  163. 

Amnesty,  speech  on,  ii.  218-245;  Con' 
gressional  legislation  on,  218,  219,  234; 
atrocities  of  Andersonville,  223  seq. ; 
mortality,  231,  235;  charges  of  atroci 
ties  at  Elmira,  231  seq. ;  exchange  of 


prisoners,  236  seq.  ;  Confederate  legis-. 
lation,  236,  237  ;  Northern  sympathiz 
ers,  244,  245. 

Anderson,  Gen.  Robert,  i.  657. 

Andersonville,  atrocities  at,  ii.  223-231. 

Antislavery  sentiment  in  the  army,  i.  u 
seq.,  253,  254. 

Appropriations  for  1875,  speech  on,  ii. 
129-139 ;  proposed  reduction  of  expend 
itures,  130;  table  showing  reductions, 
134;  analysis  of  expenditures  from  1873 
to  1876,  137-139. 

Appropriations  and  Misappropriations, 
National,  paper  on,  ii.  740-752 ;  revenue 
defined,  740 ;  effect  of  war  upon  expend 
itures,  741 ;  progress  of  reduction  from 
the  war  level,  742  ;  careless  methods  of 
appropriation,  743-745,  747  seq. ;  re 
sponsibility  for,  rests  with  the  House, 
745  ;  increase  of,  during  45th  Congress, 
746;  should  all  be  in  charge  of  one 
committee,  751,  752. 

Archimedes,  mirrors  of,  i.  455. 

Army,  U.  S.,  in  reconstruction  of  Rebel 
States,  i.  250-264 ;  growth  of  antislavery 
sentiment  in,  253,  254;  speech  on  re 
duction  of,  408-429;  consolidation  of 
departments  in,  413  seq. ;  Calhoun  the 
ory  of,  428,  ii.  544,  545 ;  and  the  Public 
Peace,  speech  on,  543-550 ;  theories  as 
to,  544  seq. ;  necessity  for,  545  seq.  ; 
for  suppression  of  strikes,  548  seq.  ;  use 
of,  at  the  polls,  655,  656,  665  seq.,  682 
seq.  ;  "  Troops  at  the  Polls,"  695-702. 

Army  Bill,  contest  over  (46th  Cong.),  ii. 
655.  656. 

Army  of  the  Cumberland,  i.  497  ;  oration 
before  Society  of,  643-673  ;  operations 
of,  657-664;  Gen.  Thomas's  connection 
with,  664-668,  775 ;  Gen.  Rosecrans 
commander  of,  775-779. 

Armv  of  the  Revolution,  treatment  of,  i. 
426-428. 


793 


INDEX. 


Armstrong,  W.  H.,  of  Perm.,  i.  586. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  on  education,  ii.  23. 

Ashley,  Jas.  M.,  of  Ohio,  on  I3th  Amend 
ment,  i.  76. 

Atherton,  C.  G.,  of  N.  H.,  "  gag  "  resolu 
tions,  i.  598,  599. 

Atkins,  J.  D.  C.,  of  Tenn.,  on  army  bill, 
ii.  660,  661. 

Atlantic  Ocean,  present  seat  of  civiliza 
tion,  i.  634,  ii.  49,  281. 

Austria,  census  in,  ii.  201. 


B. 


Baird,  H.  C.,  on  money,  ii.  250-253. 

Baker,  J.  H.,  of  Ind.,  ii.  700. 

Bancroft,  George,  History  quoted,  i.  524, 
526,  ii.  79,  205,  206,  466,  467. 

Banks,  speeches  on  Currency  and,  i.  543- 
592 ;  notes  and  checks,  547,  548 ;  defi 
nition  of,  549  ;  deposits,  550;  National, 
190,  485-488,  562-566,  579;  State,  489- 
495,  567-569.  See  Currency. 

Banks,  N.  P.,  of  Mass.,  i.  122. 

Banning,  H.  B.,  of  Ohio,  ii.  383. 

Barker  v.  Hodgson,  case  of,  ii.  166,  167. 

Bastiat,  Frederic,  on  coin,  ii.  260. 

Bates,  Edward,  Attorney-General,  i.  718. 

Bayard,  Thos.  F.,  on  Electoral  Commis 
sion,  ii.  443,  444. 

Beck,  J.  B.,  of  Ky.,  i.  377  ;  on  appropria 
tions,  ii.  110-112,  659. 

Belgium,  census  in,  ii.  199. 

Belknap,  W.  W.,  trial  of,  ii.  386. 

Bell,  John,  on  money  bills,  i.  688. 

Benton,  Jacob,  of  N.  H.,  on  free  banking, 
i.  576. 

Benton,  Thos.  H.,  on  coin,  ii.  257;  in 
Congress,  480. 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  i.  526. 

Berton,  Jules,  instructions  from  Leon  Say, 

»•  33 1- 

Bi-metallism,  ii.  348-350. 

Bingham,  J.  A.,  of  Ohio,  on  reconstruc 
tion,  i.  257,  264,  710-713;  on  civil  ser 
vice  reform,  513,  517,  518. 

Black,  J.  S.,  counsel  in  cases  of  Milligan 
et  al.,  i.  144. 

Blackburn,  J.  C.  S.,  of  Ky.,  ii.  673,  676. 

Blackstone,  Sir  Wm.,  on  martial  law,  i. 

157- 
Elaine,  Jas.  G.,  of  .Maine,  i.  122,  ii.  219, 

221,  223,  383. 
Blair,   F.   P.,   letter   to  J.   O.    Brodhead, 

i-  392,  393.  397,  »•  360- 


Bland,  R.  P.,  of  Mo.,  silver  bill,  ii.  341. 

Bonner  v.  Lynch,  case  of,  ii.  452,  453. 

Bonnet,  Victor,  quoted  on  French  finance, 
ii.  496,  498. 

Booth,  Almeda  A.,  address  on,  ii.  290- 
319;  parentage,  293  seq. ;  birth  and 
early  education,  295  seq.  ;  picture  of, 
by  A.  G.  Riddle,  296 ;  engagement  to 
Martyn  Harmon,  and  his  death,  298 ; 
personal  reminiscences,  299  seq.  ;  be 
comes  teacher  at  the  Eclectic  Institute 
(Hiram  College),  301  ;  contrasted  with 
Margaret  Fuller,  302  seq.  ;  success  as  a 
teacher  and  student,  304  seq.  ;  at  Ober- 
lin  College,  308;  at  Hiram  again,  308 
seq. ;  at  Cuyahoga  Falls  and  Cleveland, 
311 ;  death,  313  ;  character,  314  seq. 

Boudinot,  Elias,  of  N.  J.,  i.  65. 

Boutwell,  Geo.  S.,  of  Mass.,  on  sale  of 
gold,  i.  35;  effect  of  his  gold  bill,  40, 
41  ;  on  amendment  of  the  Constitution, 
83 ;  opposes  contraction  of  the  curren 
cy,  198. 

Bowen,  Prof.  Francis,  on  banks,  i.  549, 

55°>  SSi- 
Bowles,  W.  A.,  et  al.,  case  of,  i.  143  seq. 
Bradley,    Mr.   Justice,   ii.   156,   160,  161  ; 

quoted,  522,  724. 
Bright,  John,  letter  from,  i.  126. 
Brodhead,  Richard,   of  Penn.,  on  money 

bills,  i.  691-693. 
Brodhead  Letter,  i.  392,  ii.  366. 
Brooks,  James,  of  N.  Y.,  on  public  credit, 

ii.  39. 

Broomall,  J.  M.,  of  Penn.,  i.  44,  48,  50,  60. 
Brougham,    Lord,    on   education,   i.    137, 

138  ;  on  martial  law,  166,  167. 
Brownlow,  Gov.,  letter  on  readmission  of 

Tennessee,  i.  112,  113. 
Buchanan,   President,  expenses  under,  i. 

399,  401 ;  on  paper  money,  ii.  517. 
Buckle,  H.  T.,  i.  454. 
Buckner,  A.  H.,  of  Mo.,  ii.  494. 
Buell,  Gen.  D.  C.,  i.  659,  660. 
Bullion  Report,  in  England,  i.  193,  ii.  264, 

265. 

Burchard,  H.  C.,  of  111.,  i.  574,  577,  ii-  235. 
Burke,  Edanus,  of  S.  C.,  proposes  amend 
ment  to  Constitution,  ii.  721. 
Burke,  Edmund,  on  coin,  ii.  260. 
Burlamaqui,  cited,  5.  99,  100. 
Burnet,   Judge   Jacob,    account   of   Geo. 

Rogers  Clarke,  ii.  82,  83. 
Burnet,   Wm.,  Gov.  of   N.  J.,  quoted,  i. 

457,  ii.  205,  206. 
Burr,  Aaron,  tic  vote  with  Jefferson,  ii.  480. 


INDEX. 


799 


Butler,  B.  F.,  of  Mass.,  counsel  in  cases 
of  Milligan  et  al.,  i.  144,  155,  156;  on 
taxing  U.  S.  bonds,  327,  328,  333,  339, 
342-346 ;  on  census,  374 ;  on  reduc 
tion  of  the  army,  414,  418,  422  ;  on  civil 
service  reform,  506,  515,  517  ;  on  pa 
per  money,  592,  753,  ii.  250,  251,  527; 
on  redeeming  standards,  ii.  180,  268, 
269,  595;  officers  under,  proscribed  by 
Rebel  government,  237  ;  opposes  Hali 
fax  award,  573. 

Bynkershoek,  cited,  i.  100. 


C. 


Cabinet  Officers  in  Congress,  speech  on, 
i.  61-72;  resolution  of  Mr.  Pendleton, 
61  ;  precedents  for,  63  seq.;  constitution 
ality  of,  67-69  ;  policy  of,  70-72. 

Cabell,  Joseph  C.,  letter  of  Madison  to, 

»•  552-554. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  on  the  army,  i.  428,  429, 
ii.  544,  545  ;  on  money,  ii.  257  ;  in  Con 
gress,  480 ;  favors  protective  tariff,  557  ; 
on  State  sovereignty,  712,  713. 

Cambreleng,  C.  C.,  of  N.  Y.,  on  money 
bills,  i.  689. 

Campbell,  Alex.,  of  III,  on  money,  ii.  253. 

Campbell,  J.  A.,  on  Andersonville,  ii.  229, 
230. 

Camden  and  Amboy  Railroad,  i.  42,  46, 
49-58. 

Canada,  exports  to,  i.  531. 

Candler,  John  W.,  on  sugar  duties,  ii.  650, 
651. 

Canvass  in  Ohio,  speech  on,  i.  477-498. 

Carey,  Henry  C.,  i.  522,  ii.  250. 

Carlisle,  John  G.,  of  Ky.,  on  Army  Bill, 
ii.  666,  667,  688,  701. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  "  cheap  and  nasty,"  ii. 
i?7»  3435  eye  that  can  see,  775. 

Carpenter,  F.  B.,  artist  of  "  Reading  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation,"  ii.  534. 

Carpenter,  Matt  H.,  ii.  157. 

Gary,  Samuel,  Rag  Baby,  ii.  771. 

Cass,  Lewis,  notice  of,  ii.  774,  775. 

Castlereagh,  Lord,  on  money  standard,  ii. 
265,  624. 

Catiline,  his  party  "the  bilge-water  of 
Rome,"  ii.  767. 

Census,  speeches  on  Ninth,  i.  443-476 ; 
bill  for  taking,  443,  450;  basis  of  rep 
resentation,  446  seq.;  literature  of,  451, 
ii.  204,  214-217  ;  statistics,  i.  445,  452 
seq.;  ordered  by  David,  i.  457,  ii.  186; 


defects  in  old  method,  i.  460  seq.;  reme 
dies,  462  seq.;  population  and  mortality 
schedules,  463 ;  agricultural  schedule, 
467  seq.;  statistics  of  industry,  469  seq.  ; 
of  commerce,  472  seq.;  social  statistics, 
473.  Article  on,  ii.  185-217;  Jewish, 
185;  Greek,  187;  Roman,  188-190;  in 
Middle  Ages,  190,  191 ;  France,  190, 198; 
Spain,  191,  203;  Sweden,  191;  Great 
Britain,  192  seq.;  Belgium,  199;  Prussia, 
200 ;  Austria,  201  ;  Russia,  202  ;  Nor 
way,  202  ;  Switzerland,  203 ;  Italy,  203 ; 
Greece,  204;  United  States,  204  seq.; 
ninth  census,  213,  215;  State  censuses, 
216;  works  on,  214,  215,  217. 
Chamberlain,  Gov.,  of  S.  C.,  letter  to,  ii. 

37i- 

Champlain,  Samuel,  discovers  lake,  ii.  73. 

Charlemagne,  census,  ii.  190. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  on  taxing  U.  S.  bonds, 
i.  482  ;  remarks  on  death  of,  ii.  92-94  ; 
definition  of  legal  tender,  246,  249;  in 
Congress,  480;  on  paper  money,  519, 
520 ;  in  Lincoln's  cabinet,  536 ;  account 
of  reading  Emancipation  Proclamation, 

540,  541. 

Chances,  doctrine  of,  ii.  158,  159. 

Chandler,  Col.  D.  T.,  report  on  Ander 
sonville,  ii.  226-232  ;  humanity  of,  229. 

Chandler,  Zachariah,  resolutions  on  death 
of,  ii.  773;  tribute  to,  773~777- 

Chinese  immigration,  remarks  on,  ii.  785. 

Chilton,  Col.  R.  H.,  letters  to,  on  Ander 
sonville,  ii.  227-229. 

Chisholm  v.  Georgia,  case  of,  ii.  716. 

Citizenship,  definition  of,  i.  716-719. 

Civil  Rights  Bill,  i.  708,  714,  718,  719,  722. 

Civil  Service  Reform,  remarks  on,  i.  499- 
519,  738-740,  ii.  786;  standard  should  be 
raised,  i.  500;  competitive  examination, 
502,  503,  518,  519 ;  rules  respecting,  504  ; 
hostility  to,  in  Congress,  506,  507 ;  au 
thorities  in  favor  of,  507-513;  practice 
of  early  Presidents,  511;  President 
Grant  on,  513-518. 

Clarke,  Geo.  Rogers,  conquers  the  West 
ern  territory,  ii.  81-83,  84. 

Clay,  Henry,  his  tariff,  i.  538,  539, 686-688 ; 
turnpike,  ii.  56 ;  defrauded  of  Louisiana 
vote,  399,  400;  in  Congress,  480;  on 
paper  money,  510. 

Cleaveland,  Gen.  Moses,  leads  party  to 
settle  in  Ohio,  ii.  86-88;  extract  from 
his  journal,  87. 

Clifford,  Mr.  Justice,  ii.  162,  170. 

Clinton  riot,  ii.  369. 


8oo 


INDEX. 


Cobb,  Amasa,  of  Wise.,  resolution  taxing 
U.  S.  bonds,  i.  327,  330,  331,  343,  347, 
348. 

Cobb,  Howell,  of  Ga.,  ii.  494. 

Cobb,  S.  A.,  of  Kansas,  ii.  129. 

Cobbett,  Wm.,  on  resumption  in  England, 
ii.  620. 

Coburn,  John,  of  IncL,  i.  577,  585-587,  589. 

Colfax,  Schuyler,  i.  556,  669,  775. 

College  Education,  address  on,  i.  265—283  ; 
kinds  of  knowledge  to  be  taught,  266 
seq.;  undue  importance  given  to  classi 
cal  knowledge,  275-283 ;  Sydney  Smith 
on,  281,  282. 

Colonies,  American,  oppression  of,  by 
Great  Britain,  i.  522-527. 

Commerce  between  States,  speech  on,  i. 
42-60;  right  of  Congress  to  regulate, 
44,  48,  56,  60. 

Confiscation  of  Rebel  Property,  speech 
on,  i.  1-17;  Acts  of  Congress  relating 
to,  1-3;  Wilson's  resolution,  2  seq.; 
theories  concerning,  3  seq.;  Revolution 
ary  confiscation,  6-9,  ii.  380;  constitu 
tional  theory,  8-10  ;  policy  of,  10-12. 

Conger,  O.  D  ,  of  Mich.,  report  on  White 
Line,  ii.  367  ;  vote  on  election  laws,  682. 

Congress,  right  to  regulate  commerce  be 
tween  States,  i.  44,  48,  56,  60;  Cabinet 
Officers  in,  speech  on,  i.  61-72 ;  war  pow 
ers,  259;  right  to  originate  revenue  bills, 
674-701 ;  powers  of,  under  I3th,  I4th 
and  1 5th  Amendments,  707-726.  And 
Presidential  Elections,  speech  on,  ii. 
393-405  ;  powers  as  to  electors,  394  seq.; 
no  right  to  reject  electoral  votes,  397 
seq.',  as  to  telegraphic  despatches,  403- 
405.  A  Century  of,  article  on,  463-489 ; 
origin  of,  463,  464  ;  convention  of  1690, 
464  ;  Congress  at  Albany,  465  ;  second 
congress  of  delegates,  466  ;  first  Con 
tinental,  467-469  ;  members  of,  467  ; 
second  Continental,  469^.;  First  Con 
gress,  474  seq.;  formality  of,  475  seq.; 
reaction  under  Jefferson,  478  seq.;  en 
croachments  on  appointing  power,  482 
seq.;  overloaded  with  work,  484  seq.; 
people  responsible  for  its  character,  486 
seq.  Power  to  enact  protective  tariff, 
556-558.  Revolution  in,  speeches  on, 
655-678 ;  proposed  legislation  on  the 
Army  and  Appropriation  Bills  (45th 
Cong  ),  655  seq.;  attempt  to  repeal  ob 
noxious  election  laws,  ib.;  failure  of 
appropriation  bills,  656,  658  ;  extra  ses 
sion  (46th  Cong.),  656 ;  review  of  the 


situation,  658  seq.;  ways  in  which  our 
government  may  be  destroyed,  662  seq.; 
its  safety  in  the  sovereign  people,  663 ; 
proper  remedy  for  redress  of  grievances, 
664 ;  obnoxious  law  passed  by  Demo 
cratic  party,  665  seq.;  attempt  to  coerce 
government,  667  seq.;  misstatement  of 
Mr.  Garfield's  position,  673 ;  his  reply, 
673~678.  Has  full  control  over  na 
tional  elections,  682-684.  Obedience  to 
law  the  Duty  of,  speech  on,  723-730; 
Democratic  party  in,  oppose  appropria 
tion  for  U.  S.  Marshals,  723;  oppose 
decision  of  Supreme  Court,  724  seq.; 
election  laws  the  supreme  law  of  the 
land,  726  seq. 

Congress,  Revolutionary,  national  sov 
ereignty  lodged  in,  i.  78-80;  on  census, 
ii.  206-208. 

Congressional  Nullification,  speeches  on, 
ii.  685-694,  703-707  ;  Judicial  Expenses 
Bill,  685;  nullifying  clauses,  686;  amend 
ments  offered,  691-694;  Jurors  Bill, 
703,  704;  objections  to  the  bill,  704;  in 
tended  to  nullify  existing  laws,  704  seq. 

Conkling,  Roscoe,  of  N.  Y.,  on  legal  ten 
der,  i.  358;  on  I4th  Amendment,  711,  712. 

Connecticut  Land  Company,  ii.  86-89. 

Connell,  Col.,  troubles  of  Ohio  Democ 
racy,  i.  7  56-7  58. 

Constitution,  powers  of,  i.  18 ;  I3th 
Amendment  to,  73-84,  709 ;  not  a  com 
pact  of  confederation,  77-82 ;  I4th 
Amendment,  243,  245,  249,  256,  702, 
709  seq.,  761-765 ;  war  powers  of  Con 
gress  by,  259;  1 5th  Amendment,  623, 
630*  709,  723,  726;  on  money  bills, 
678 ;  the  supreme  law,  705 ;  as  to  Pres 
idential  Electors,  ii.  394-403,  420—434  ; 
authorizes  Congress  to  enact  tariff,  553 
-556;  establishes  toleration  in  religion 
and  freedom  of  the  press,  578. 

Cooper,  Gen.  S.,  on  Andersonville,  ii. 
229,  230. 

Corfield  v.  Coryell,  case  of,  i.  720. 

Courts  Martial,  powers  of,  i.  149  seq. 

Cox,  J.  D.,  of  Ohio,  reform  in  Interior 
Department,  i.  496,  740. 

Cox,  S.  S.,  opposes  confiscation,  etc.,  i.  2, 
3,  18;  on  Cabinet  officers  in  Congress, 
61,  62,  65,  72,  74 ;  on  Constitutional 
amendment,  84;  on  census  bill,  451; 
free-trader,  540;  on  currency,  572,  577, 
578,  592;  on  revenue,  ii.  107  ;  on  am 
nesty,  219,  223;  on  Congressional  nulli 
fication,  687,  692  ;  on  election  law,  768. 


INDEX. 


80 1 


Creole,  case  of  the,  i.  603-605. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  ii.  379;  on  Harring 
ton's  Oceana,  576. 

Currency,  remarks  on,  i.  189  set/.;  speech 
on,  284-321 ;  increase  of,  required  by 
the  war,  219,  289;  amount  depends  on 
business,  293;  increase  of,  decreases 
value  and  raises  prices,  293  seq. ;  evils  of 
irredeemable,  296  seq.,  489  seq.  ;  Mushet 
on  panics,  313;  bill  for  return  to  specie 
payments,  315  seq.  And  the  Banks, 
speeches  on,  543-592,  621-623  ;  mania 
for  inflation  of,  543,  544 ;  paper  not 
money,  546;  unequal  distribution,  551 
-560,  570,  575,  590-592  ;  contraction  or 
inflation  of,  554,  561,  562  ;  government 
or  national  banks,  563-566  ;  State  bank 
system,  567-569  ;  Senate  bill  and  sub 
stitute,  571,  572,  584;  non-exportabil- 
ity  of,  580,  581,  ii.  250,  251.  And  the 
Public  Faith,  speech  on,  ii.  175-184 ;  the 
Maynard  Bill,  175 ;  "  cheap  money,"  177, 
527 ;  B.  F.  Butler  on  standard,  180 ; 
errors  of  the  bill,  iSi  seq. ;  irredeem 
able  paper  money,  183  ;  volume  of, 
controlled  by  national  banks,  623. 

Currency  Conflict,  paper  on,  ii.  246-273 ; 
doctrines  of  1862,  247  seq.,  492  ;  change 
of  sentiment,  249,  493 ;  "  soft  money," 
250  seq.;  "absolute  money,"  252;  hard 
money,  257  seq.  ;  paper  as  representing 
actual  money,  262  seq. ;  inconvertible 
paper  money,  264  seq.  ;  evils  of  depre 
ciated  currency,  266  seq.  ;  duty  of  gov 
ernment,  271  seq. 

Cushing,  Caleb,  on  Creole  case,  i.  604; 
on  power  of  U.  S.  marshal,  ii.  672. 


D. 


Darnell,  Sir  Thomas,  case  of,  i.  158. 

Dartmouth  College  case,  ii.  61,  68. 

David,  census  by,  i.  457,  ii.  186. 

Davis,  Garrett,  of  Ky.,  i.  234.  236. 

Davis,  H.  W.,  of  Md.,  on  military  law, 
i.  176-178,  181. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  amnesty  to,  ii.  223  seq., 
383  ;  responsible  for  Andersonville  atro 
cities,  226  seq.,  239  ;  proclamation  as  to 
negro  prisoners,  237  seq.  ;  leader  of  the 
South  to-day,  764,  766,  769. 

Davis,  J.  J.,  of  N.  C.,  on  amnesty,  ii.  242, 

243- 

Dawes,  H.  L.,  of  Mass.,  on  tariff,  i.  214; 
mentioned,  378,  499,  ii.  99,  104,  109- 


114,  124,  12.5;  resolve  on  money  bills, 
i.  698 ;  chairman  of  Committee  on 
Appropriations,  ii.  i  ;  on  appropria 
tions,  749. 

Dean,  H.  Clay,  i.  235. 

DeBow,  J.  D.  B.,  on  population  of  the 
Colonies,  ii.  206. 

Declaration  of  Independence,  immortal 
truths  of,  ii.  359  ;  sovereignty  lodged  in 
Congress  by  the,  471. 

Decoration  Day,  oration  at  Arlington, 
Va.,  i.  322-326. 

Degener,  Edward  E.,  of  Texas,  i.  566. 

Delano,  Columbus,  of  Ohio,  i.  212,  496, 
615,708. 

Delmar,  Alex.,  Democratic  statistician,  i. 
496. 

Deming,  H.  C.,  of  Conn.,  on  Camden 
and  Amboy  monopoly,  i.  42,  43,  48 ; 
referred  to,  107  ;  proposes  Constitu 
tional  amendment,  115. 

Democratic  Party,  course  of,  i.  390-407, 
610-631  ;  financial  policy,  391  ;  on  re 
construction,  392-398 ;  charges  of  Re 
publican  extravagance,  398-402 ;  heavy 
taxation,  402  ;  on  taxing  U.  S.  bonds, 
403-406 ;  peculiar  situation  of,  in  1869, 
477  ;  "  new  departure  "  of,  478,  732, 
756-758  ;  attack  public  debt,  481 ;  favor 
paying  bonds  in  greenbacks,  482  ;  op 
pose  National  banks,  485-489,  626 ;  es 
tablished  Subtreasury,  489  ;  favor  State 
bank  system,  491-495,626;  charge  op 
pression  of  the  South,  497  ;  misrule  of, 
in  New  York,  743,  744 ;  issues  of,  all 
dead,  758,  759,  ii.  377  seq.,  756,  771  ; 
contrasted  with  Republican  party,  i. 
759,  760,  ii.  379  seq. ;  review  of  career 
of,  to  1872,  ii.  34-36.  And  the  Govern 
ment,  speech  on,  in  reply  to  Mr.  La- 
mar,  353-387  ;  conflict  of  ideas  planted 
in  America,  360,  361,  760  seq.  ;  defence 
of  slavery  their  central  idea,  361  seq. ; 
oppose  reconstruction,  364  seq. ;  out 
rages  at  the  South,  366  seq.,  763 ;  the  evil 
genius  of  the  South,  376  seq. ;  "  Cop 
perheads,"  376  ;  originated  "  spoils  " 
doctrine,  382.  And  Public  Opinion, 
speech  on,  753-772;  modern  party  has 
originated  no  living  ideas,  753;  taken 
both  sides  on  all  great  questions,  754 
seq.  ;  deny  returning  prosperity,  756; 
injured  by  its  return,  758  seq.  ;  the  new 
rebellion,  760  seq. ;  Southern  despot 
ism,  761  seq.  ;  "  Solid  South  "  and  "  lost 
cause,"  764  seq. ;  ruled  by  secret  cau- 


51 


802 


INDEX. 


cus,  766;  oppose  fair  election  law,  767 
seq. ;  refuse  appropriations  to  support 
government,  767  seg. ;  advice  to  young 
men,  770  seq. 

Deputy  Marshals,  appointment  of.  See 
Marshals. 

Bering,  Sir  Edward,  punished  for  pub 
lishing  speech  in  Parliament,  ii.  577. 

Dermott  v.  Jones,  case  of,  ii.  144,  161. 

De  Soto,  Hernando,  ii.  73,  74,  76. 

Dickinson,  John,  i.  457,  ii.  466,  470. 

Diplomatic  and  Consular  Service,  remarks 
on,  ii.  274-285  ;  salaries  of  ministers, 

276  seq. ;  missions  to   South  America, 

277  seq.  ;  to  Japan  and  China,  280  seq.  ; 
duty   of   consuls   to   our   seamen,  283, 
284 ;  our  expenses  less  than  those  of 
any  great  European  nation,  285. 

Dollar,  definition  of,  ii.  266. 
Doolittle,  J.  R.,  of  Wise.,  i.  234. 
Doubleday,  Thos.,  on  finance,  ii.  254,  499, 

523- 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  i.  390. 

Drew,  Gov.,  contested  election  of,  in 
Florida,  ii.  438. 

Drew,  John  G.,  on  currency,  ii.  253. 

Dryden,  John,  quoted,  i.  525. 

Duer,  John,  on  Insurance,  quoted,  ii.  149. 

Dunmore,  Lord,  declares  martial  law  in 
Virginia,  i.  161. 

Dunnell,  M.  H.,  of  Minn.,  i.  507. 

Duvall,  Mr.  Justice,  in  Dartmouth  Col 
lege  case,  ii.  68. 

D wight,  Timothy,  ii.  210. 

Dyer,  Eliphalet,  in  Congress  at  New 
York,  ii.  466. 

Dynes  v.  Hoover,  case  of,  i.  1 53. 


Eclectic  Institute,  made  Hiram  College, 
i.  265;  Almeda  Booth  at,  ii.  301  seq. 

Edmunds,  Geo.  F.,  of  Vt.,  on  Electoral 
Commission  bill,  ii.  437. 

Education,  National  Bureau  of,  speech 
on,  i.  126  seq. ;  Mr.  Garfield  author 
of  act  establishing,  126,  127  ;  statistics 
of,  128;  importance  of,  129;  compul 
sory  system  of,  132;  in  Ohio,  133;  in 
Pennsylvania,  133-135;  J.  S.  Mill  on, 
136,  ii.  19;  Milton  on,  i.  137;  Lord 
Brougham  on,  137,  138;  Guizot  and 
Washington  on,  138  ;  John  Adams, 
Chancellor  Kent,  and  Edward  Everett  i 
on,  139;  in  Germany  and  France,  140,  j 


141.  ''National  Aid  to,  speech  on,  ii. 
19-25;  Martin  Luther  on,  21;  Labou- 
laye  on,  21  ;  Rev.  J.  Frazier  on,  22  ; 
Matthew  Arnold  on,  23;  M.  C.  Hip- 
peau  on,  24;  Europe  tending  to  our 
system,  25. 

Egerton  v.  Earl  of  Brownlow,  case  of,  ii. 
1 66. 

Electoral  Commission,  appointment  of, 
ii.  406-408 ;  powers  conferred  on, 
428,  429;  organization  of,  435;  argu 
ment  before,  in  Florida  case,  437-448 ; 
in  Louisiana  case,  449-462 ;  no  refer 
ence  to  parties  in  the  law  establishing, 
694.  ^ 

Electricity,  discoveries  in,  ii.  27,  28. 

Eliot,  Thos.  D.,  of  Mass ,  remarks  on 
American  shipping,  i.  120  ;  on  I4th 
Amendment,  714. 

Ellenborough,  Lord,  quoted,  ii.  164,  167. 

Ellsworth,    Oliver,   on   paper   money,   ii. 

5*5- 

Elmira  prison,  pretended  atrocities  at, 
ii-  231-235. 

Elwell,  Gen.  J.  J.,  despatch  on  Elmira 
prison,  ii.  233. 

Emancipation  Proclamation,  i.  480,497,  ii. 
533-542. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  quotation  from,  ii.  312. 

Enforcement  Act,  i.  723. 

England.     See  Great  Britain. 

Eppes,  John  W.,  letters  of  Jefferson  to, 
ii.  255-257,  517. 

Evans,  Geo.,  of  Maine,  resolution  of,  i. 
690,  691. 

Everett,  Edward,  on  education,  i.  139 ; 
on  tariff,  211. 

Ewing,  Thos.,  Sen.,  ii.  492. 

Ewing,  Gen.  Thos.,  i.  752  seq.  ;  bill  to 
repeal  Resumption  Act,  ii.  490,  508, 
509;  on  national  elections,  679-684;  on 
revival  of  business,  756,  757  ;  on  Rebel 
brigadiers,  768  ;  on  "fiat  money/'  771. 

Expenditures,  Revenues  and,  speech  on, 
ii.  96-128  ;  appropriation  bills  for  1875, 
96,  97  ;  revenue  should  exceed  expendi 
ture,  98  ;  deficit  in  1841-42,  during  the 
Mexican  war,  and  in  Buchanan's  ad 
ministration,  100  ;  cause  of  deficit  for 
1875,  1 01 ;  table  of  receipts  and  expend 
itures,  102;  table  of  reduction  of  taxes, 
103  ;  duty  of  Congress,  108  seq. ;  table 
of  appropriations,  113;  table  of  ex 
penditures,  115-117;  what  should  be 
done,  ii<)  scq.  ;  public  works,  125-127. 
See  Appropriations,  Public  Expenditures. 


INDEX. 


803 


F. 


Farnsworth,   J.  F.,   of    111.,   i.   125,   714, 

775- 

Farquhar,  J.  H.,  of  Ind.,  on  tariff,  i.  210. 

Fenton,  R.  E.,  of  N.  Y.,  i.  775. 

Fessenden,  W.  P.,  of  Maine,  on  legal  ten 
der  bill,  i.  306,  ii.  248,  492 ;  proposed 
constitutional  amendment,  i.  712. 

Field,  David  D.,  counsel  in  cases  of  Mil- 
ligan  et  a/.,  i.  144 ;  objector  in  Florida 
election  case,  ii.  439,  440,  451. 

Fifteenth  Amendment,  i.  709,  723,  726, 
761,  ii.  366,  370. 

Finance,  Republican  management  of,  i. 
398-402,  615  seq.,  741  seq.,  ii.  38,  39. 
See  Currency,  Expenditures,  Honest 
Money,  Paper  Money,  Silver,  Specie  Pay 
ments. 

Fink,  W.  E.,  of  Ohio,  i.  8,  234. 

Florida,  contested  election  in,  ii.  406,  435 
seq. 

Flowers  on  Soldiers'  Graves,  oration  on, 
i.  322-326. 

Ford,  John,  and  foundation  of  Western 
Reserve  College,  ii.  91. 

Ford,  Gov.,  of  Ohio,  ii.  91. 

Forrest,  Gen.  N.  B.,  i.  398. 

Forsyth,  John,  of  Georgia,  on  money 
bills,  i.  686. 

Foster,  Charles,  of  Ohio,  on  counting 
Electoral  vote,  ii.  432 ;  on  Democratic 
party,  754,  768. 

Fourier,  Charles,  on  corporations,  ii.  65, 
66. 

Fourteenth  Amendment,  i.  243,  245,  249, 
256,  702,  709  seq.,  ii.  218,  219,  220,  365, 
366 ;  and  Representation,  remarks  on, 
i.  761-765. 

Fractional  Currency,  remarks  on,  ii.  329- 
340;  cost  of,  334,  335;  loss  of,  by  wast 
age,  339  ;  silver  resumption  for,  508, 

509- 

France,  bankruptcy  of,  i.  741-743  ;  census 
in,  ii.  190,  198;  paper  currency  in,  273, 
495-498 ;  proscription  of  the  press  in, 

579- 
Franklin,  Benjamin,   establishes   schools 

in  Philadelphia,  i.  133;  on  money  bills, 

679-681;  on  paper  money,  ii.  183,  255; 

agent  for   Colonies   in   England,  469; 

revives  plan  of  union,  471. 
Frazier,  Rev.  J.,  on  education,  ii.  22. 
Free  Trade.     See  Tariff. 
Frontenac,  Count,  ii.  74. 
Frye,  Lieut.,  case  of,  i.  151,  152. 


Fuller,  Margaret,  contrasted  with  Almeda 

A.  Booth,  ii.  302-304. 
Future   of  the   Republic,  address  on,  ii. 

46-69.     See  Republic. 


G. 

Gadsden,  Christopher,  in  Congress  at 
New  York,  ii.  466  ;  in  Constitutional 
Convention,  467. 

Gage,  Gen.,  declares  martial  law  in  Bos 
ton,  i.  160. 

Galton,  Francis,  quoted,  ii.  58. 

Garfield,  James  A.,  first  financial  speech 
in  Congress,  i.  35-38  ;  introduces  bill 
establishing  National  Department  of 
Education,  126 ;  first  appearance  in 
U.  S.  Supreme  Court,  in  cases  of  Milli- 
gan  et  al.,  144;  defends  his  course,  144, 
145;  on  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means, 
183;  elected  to  Cobden  Club,  285;  op 
poses  taxation  of  U.  S.  bonds,  329-352  ; 
chairman  of  Committee  on  Military 
Affairs,  408 ;  Regent  of  Smithsonian 
Institution,  430;  on  Census  Committee, 
443,  450;  views  on  free  trade,  521  seq.; 
on  Gen.  Rosecrans's  staff,  767  ;  letter  to 
Rosecrans,  767-772 ;  letter  to  Secretary 
Chase  on  Rosecrans,  772-774;  remarks 
on  him,  775  seq.;  chairman  of  Com 
mittee  on  Appropriations,  ii.  i  ;  leading 
part  in  extra  session  of  46th  Congress, 
656,  657;  letter  accepting  Presidential 
nomination,  782-787  ;  inaugural  address, 
788-795. 

Garibaldi  and  Gladstone,  anecdote  con 
cerning,  ii.  757. 

Garrison,  Wm.  L.,  i.  597. 

Gassies  v.  Ballou,  case  of,  i.  720. 

Geauga  County  Historical  Society,  ii.  70. 

Geneva  Award,  remarks  on,  ii.  324-328. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  quoted,  i.  109,  ii.  355. 

Giddings,  Joshua  R.,  i.  74,  ii.  361,  480; 
address  on,  i.  593-609;  monument  to, 
593  ;  early  life,  594  ;  on  slavery,  595 
seq.  ;  his  History  of  Rebellion  quoted 
598-602,604-606;  his  Exiles  of  Florida, 
602 ;  the  Creole  case,  603-605 ;  charac 
ter,  608,  609. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  quoted,  i.  341,  ii.  18  ; 
anecdote  concerning  him  and  Garibaldi, 

ii-  757- 

Glascock,  Thos.,  of  Ga.,  i.  600. 
Goethe,  on  figures,  i.  456;  effect  of  first 

acquaintance  with  Shakespeare,  ii.  628. 
Gold,  sale  of  surplus,  i.  35-41 ;  locked  in 


804 


INDEX. 


the  Treasury,  36;  how  to  be  returned 
to  circulation,  39-41 ;  as  a  standard  of 
value,  ii.  336;  ratio  to  silver,  337,  339, 

34i. 

Gold  Gambling  in  New  York,  ii.  616-618. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  quoted,  i.  633. 

Goodhue,  Benj.,  of  Mass.,  quoted,  ii.  722. 

Gouge,  W.  M.,  History  of  Paper  Money, 
quoted,  i.  297. 

Gourney,  M.,  ii.  199. 

Grant,  President,  on  Indian  affairs,  i. 
368,  380,  381  ;  on  civil  service,  508, 
513-518  ;  message  on  Southern  trou 
bles,  702,  723;  efforts  to  reform  civil 
service,  ii.  33;  relative  merits  of,  and 
Mr.  Greeley,  34,  40-43 ;  virulent  attacks 
on,  44,  45;  letter  to  Gov.  Chamberlain 
of  S.  C.,  371. 

Great  Britain,  troubles  in,  during  wars  with 
Napoleon,  i.  24-27,  ii.  625  ;  development 
of  suffrage  in,  i.  91-93  ;  resumption  of 
specie  payments  in,  192,  193,  318  seq., 
ii.  499  seq.,  524;  distress  among  laboring 
classes  of,  i.  286;  income  tax  in,  331- 
347  ;  oppression  of  Colonies  by,  522- 
527 ;  treaty  with,  740,  741  ;  railway 
problem  in,  ii.  63  seq.  ;  census  in,  192- 
198  ;  large  diplomatic  and  consular  ex 
penses,  278-282 ;  mistake  of,  in  restoring 
the  Stuarts,  379,  380. 

Greece,  census  in,  ii.  187,  204. 

Greeley,  Horace,  on  agriculture,  i.  638, 
640  ;  nominated  for  President,  ii.  30, 
33,  34 ;  estimate  of,  40-43 ;  favors  Ku- 
Klux  law,  43 ;  favors  high  tariff,  565 ; 
on  independent  journalism,  582. 

Greenbacks,  a  forced  loan,  ii.  519-522; 
greenback  theory,  594,  599,  601-603 ; 
utterance  of  a  Maine  Greenbacker,  608  ; 
relation  of  greenbacks  to  public  faith, 
612;  evils  of,  613  seq.;  cause  of  gold 
gambling,  616  seq.;  fluctuations  of,  inju 
rious  to  laboring  man,  618. 

Greene,  Geo.  \V.,  Historical  View  quoted, 
i.  426,  427,  523-526. 

Gresham's  law,  ii.  343. 

Groom,  W.  P.,  on  money,  ii.  251-253. 

Grotius,  cited,  i.  99. 

Guizot,  M.,  i.  138,  140. 

Guthrie,  James,  Secretary,  on  paper 
money,  ii.  518. 


H. 

Habeas  Corpus  Act,  enacted,  i.  160;  sus 
pension  of,  in  this  country,  162  seq.,  175, 


727-729;  opinions  of  our  courts  on,  164, 
165;  executive  cannot  suspend,  171-173. 

Hale,  Eugene,  of  Maine,  ii.  138. 

Hale,  John  P.,  in  Congress,  ii.  480. 

Hale,  R.  S.,  of  N.  Y.,  i.  710,  711. 

Hale,  Sir  Matthew,  on  martial  law,  i.  156, 
157,  167,  1 68. 

Halifax  Award,  speech  on,  ii.  571-574; 
success  of  our  war  diplomacy,  571  seq.; 
exorbitance  of  the  award,  573,  574; 
final  payment,  587. 

Hallam,  Henry,  Histories,  quoted,  i.  91, 
676,  ii.  66. 

Halleck,  Gen.  H.  W.,  his  International 
Law,  quoted,  i.  99,  105;  states  that  un- 
exchanged  Rebels  fought  at  Lookout 
Mountain,  ii.  238. 

Halsted,  O.  S.,  on  money,  ii.  251. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  i.  68,  69,  71,  490, 
ii.  477,  492;  on  election  of  President, 
ii.  417,  418  ;  on  paper  money,  516. 

Hampton,  Gen.  Wade,  i.  393,  398. 

Hancock,  John,  i.  527. 

Hancock,  Gen.  W.  S.,  sent  to  Louisiana 
and  Texas,  i.  261-263;  cited,  418. 

Harding,  B.  F.,  of  Oregon,  report  on 
returned  prisoners,  ii.  225. 

Hare's  Walks  in  Rome,  quoted,  ii.  47. 

Harmon,  Martyn,  ii.  298. 

Hartsuff,  Gen.  G.  L.,  on  Gen.  Thomas, 
i.  652. 

Hawaiian  Islands,  exports  to,  i.  531 ;  re 
marks  on  treaty  with,  ii.  320-323 ;  im 
portance  of,  to  Pacific  coast,  321,  322. 

Hawley,  J.  R.,  of  Conn.,  ii.  676. 

Hayes,  President,  contested  election  of,  ii. 
406  seq.,  435  seq.,  465  seq.;  calls  special 
session  of  46th  Congress,  656;  vetoes 
Marshals  Bill,  708,  770. 

Hell  Gate,  explosion  under,  compared 
with  silver  explosion,  ii.  344. 

Henry,  Joseph,  discoveries  in  electricity, 
ii.  28,  628  ;  mentioned,  92  ;  remarks  in 
memory  of,  627-631 :  on  the  polarime- 
ter,  650. 

Henry,  Patrick,  authorizes  conquest  of 
Western  territory,  ii.  81  ;  mentioned, 
391 ;  in  Continental  Congress,  467,  469. 

Hepburn  v.  Griswold,  case  of,  i.  565,  627. 

Herbert,  H.  A.,  of  Ala.,  amendment  to 
Appropriation  Bill,  ii.  655,  656. 

Hewitt,  A.  S.,  of  N.  Y.,  on  resumption  of 
specie  payments,  ii.  331-333,  337.  338  » 
on  the  army,  544,  547,  548,  550;  amend 
ments  to  Army  Bill,  655- 

Higby,  Wm.,  of  Cal.,  i.  369,  710. 


INDEX. 


805 


Hildreth,  Richard,  History  quoted,  11.472, 

473- 
Hill,  Britton  A.,  on  money,  ii.  251,  252, 

254,  257- 

Hill,  B.  H.,  of  Georgia,  on  Andersonville 
prison,  ii.  219-235  ;  resolution  in  Con 
federate  Senate,  237  ;  on  amnesty,  240, 
241,  244. 

Hinckley,  E.  O.,  argument  in  N.  Y.  Life 
Ins.  Co.  v.  Hendren,  ii.  173,  174. 

Hinsdale,  B.  A.,  census  article,  ii.  217. 

Hippeau,  M.  C.,  on  education,  ii.  24. 

Hiram  College,  establishment  of,  i.  265  ; 
address  before,  265-283 ;  Almeda  A. 
Booth  at,  ii.  301  seq. 

Hiscock,  F.,  of  New  York,  on  Judicial 
Expenses  Bill,  ii.  686. 

Hitchcock,  Gen.  E.  A.,  ii.  239. 

Hoar,  Geo.  F.,  of  Mass.,  quoted,  i.  720 ; 
report  on  White  League,  ii.  368,  375; 
on  statues  of  Winthrop  and  Adams, 
389;  on  electoral  vote,  424,  426,  430- 
432  ;  on  corruption,  487 ;  on  pensioning 
Jefferson  Davis,  765. 

Holden,  Wm.  W.,  provisional  Governor 
of  N.  Carolina,  i.  230. 

Holman,  Wm.  S.,  of  Ind.,  on  taxing  U.  S. 
bonds,  i.  327,  330 ;  on  greenbacks,  579, 
580;  mentioned,  ii.  127,  382. 

Honest  Money,  address  on,  ii.  586-608 ; 
four  chapters  of  the  war,  arms,  recon 
struction,  diplomacy,  finance,  586,  587 ; 
the  issue  of  all  issues,  587,  588 ;  inten 
tion  of  Congress  to  redeem  greenbacks 
in  coin,  589  ;  national  banking  system, 
590,  601-604 ;  wants  of  trade,  590,  591 ; 
relation  of  government  to  financial  dis 
tress,  592  seq.;  opposition  to  resumption 
of  specie  payments,  594;  "fiat  money," 
594  seq.;  Mr.  Butler's  theory,  595  seq.; 
redemption  of  standards,  596,  597  ; 
what  is  real  money,  598 ;  duty  to  resume 
specie  payments,  599  seq.;  Macaulay's 
prophecy,  606,  607  ;  Greenback  utter 
ance,  608. 

Honest  Money  League  of  Northwest,  ii. 
609,  610  ;  address  before,  610-626. 

Hooper,  Samuel,  of  Mass.,  report  on 
taxing  U.  S.  bonds,  5.  343,  344;  on 
bank  reserves,  573,  574. 

Horace,  immortality  of,  ii.  47. 

Homer,  Francis,  Bullion  Report,  i.  193. 

Horsey,  Stephen,  et  al.,  argument  in  case 
of,  i.  143  seq. 

Horton,  V.  B.,  of  Ohio,  on  the  five-twenty 
bonds,  i.  358,  360-362. 


Hotchkiss,  G.  W.,  of  N.  Y.,  i.  711. 

Hough,  Col.  A.  A.,  letter  of  Gen.  Thomas 
to,  i.  654. 

House  v.  Mullen,  case  of,  ii.  164. 

House,  J.  F.,  of  Tenn.,  ii.  737. 

Hughes,  Thos.,  cited,  i.  739. 

Humphreys,  Gov.  B.  G.,  of  Miss.,  proc 
lamation,  i.  112;  speech  at  Meridian, 
ii.  370. 

Hunt,  Mr.  Justice,  cited,  ii.  148. 

Hunter,  Gov.,  of  N.  Y.,  quoted,  i.  456, 
ii.  205. 

Hurlbut,  S.  A.,  of  111.,  report  on  White 
Line,  ii.  367. 

Hutchins,  John,  of  Ohio,  i.  503. 

Hurd,  F.  H.,  of  Ohio,  reply  to,  ii.  720. 


I. 


Ihre,  Gen.,  cited,  i.  418. 
Inaugural  Address,  ii.  788-795. 
Income  Tax,  in  England,  i.  331-347  ;  on 
U.  S.  bonds,  348,  349 ;  in  United  States, 

747- 

Indians  :  Remarks  on  Indian  Affairs,  i. 
364-382  ;  removal  of  Bureau  to  War  De 
partment,  364-366x379-382,  422 ;  Peace 
Commission,  364",  366,  367,  380 ;  cor 
ruption  in  the  service,  370-372,  376- 
379;  treaties,  372-375;  government  for, 
377,  378  ;  peace  policy,  379-382  ;  Piegan 
massacre,  380-382 ;  government  policy 
towards,  under  Grant,  380,  ii.  37 ;  ces 
sion  of  lands  by,  ii.  84,  89  ;  war  with, 
and  defeat  of,  by  Wayne,  85. 

Ingalls,  Gen.  Rufus,  cited,  i.  418. 

Ingersoll,  E.  C.,  of  111.,  i.  367,  555,  557, 
565,  566,  581,  586,  592. 

Internal  Revenue  Bureau,  ii.  748. 

Iron  mills,  starting  of,  ii.  757. 

Irving,  Theodore,  quoted,  ii.  76. 

Italy,  census  in,  ii.  203. 


J- 


Jackson,  Andrew,  declares  martial  law  at 
N.  Orleans,  i.  164;  inaugurates  "spoils" 
system,  738,  ii.  32,  482  ;  journey  to 
Washington,  ii.  56  ;  on  paper  money, 
517;  opposition  to  State  sovereignty, 
718. 

Jarvis,  Dr.  E.,  on  census,  i.  464,  467. 

Jay,  John,  in  Continental  Congress,  ii. 
467,  469,  470. 


8o6 


INDEX. 


Jefferson,  Thomas,  quoted,  i.  8,  9,  18,  300, 
635,  756,  ii.  176;  referred  to,  i.  69,  71, 
459,  ii.  209,  475,  476,  482,  785;  suspen 
sion  of  habeas  corpus,  i.  163;  letters  to 
Eppes,  ii.  255-257,  517 ;  on  paper  money, 
255-257,  510,  517  ;  appearance  before 
Congress,  478;  tie  vote  between  him 
and  Burr,  480;  on  looseness  in  appro 
priations,  744  ;  on  great  cities,  767  ; 
commissions  Lewis  Cass,  774. 

Jenckes,  T.  L.,  of  R.  1.,  i.  77  ;  early  efforts 
for  civil  reform,  499,  507. 

Jewish  Nation,  lesson  from,  i.  116,  117; 
census  of,  457,  ii.  186. 

Johnson,  President,  reconstruction  policy 
of,  i.  95,  228-240,  252,  257-263,  394-396, 
ii.  32,  365;  refusal  to  sign  funding  bill, 
i.  406;  obstacle  to  reducing  public  debt, 
495  >  deserts  Republican  party,  739. 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  quoted,  ii.  205. 

Johnson,  Gen.  R.  W.,  on  Gen.  Thomas, 

i-  653- 

Johnson,  Reverdy,  on  Ku-Klux,  ii.  366. 
Johnston,  J.  W.,  of  Va.,  on  troops  at  the 

polls,  ii.  698. 

Joliet,  Father,  discoveries  of,  ii.  74. 
Journalism,  remarks  on,  ii.  575-585;  duty 

of   journalists,    580,    581  ;    independent 

journalism,  581-583;  intelligence  of  the 

profession,  584,  585. 
Judd,  N.  B.,  of  111.,  i.  555,  572,  573,  576, 

581,  585,  586. 
Judicial  Expenses  Bill,  ii.  685  seq.;  vetoed, 

703- 
Jurors  Bill,  ii.  703  seq.,  708. 


K. 


Kames,  Lord,  i.  756. 

Kansas,   John    Sherman's   championship 

of,  ii.  780. 

Kasson,  J.  A.,  of  Iowa,  on  tariff,  i.  209,  210. 
Kelley,   W.   D.,  of  Pa.,  i.   199,  200,  383, 

386,  539,  580,  "•  l83.  339,  495.  5OI> 
506;  on  free  trade,  i.  522;  quoted,  ii. 
250,  330,  346;  reply  to  Mr.  Garfield's 
speech  against  repeal  of  Resumption 
Act,  510;  Mr.  Garfield's  rejoinder,  510- 
528 ;  criticism  of  Mr.  McCulloch,  522, 
525;  on  revolution  in  Congress,  681. 

Kennedy,  J.  C.  G.,  Superintendent  of 
Census,  i.  459,  ii.  213. 

Kent,  Chancellor,  on  education,  i.  139; 
on  citizenship,  718;  on  counting  elec 
toral  vote,  ii.  427. 


Knott,  Proctor,  of  Ky.,  on  telegraphic 
communications,  ii.  403. 

Knox,  John  Jay,  on  the  Maynard  bill,  ii. 
181,  182. 

Ku-Klux  Klans,  i.  397  ;  speech  on  Ku- 
Klux  Act,  702-731  ;  powers  of  Con 
gress,  707-720;  no  State  to  deny  any 
person  equal  protection  of  the  laws, 
721-727 ;  habeas  corpus  and  martial 
law,  727-731 ;  referred  to,  741  ;  Mr. 
Greeley  favors  Ku-Klux  law,  ii.  43; 
Reverdy  Johnson  on,  366. 


L. 


Laflin,  A.  H.,  of  N.  Y.,  chairman  of  Print 
ing  Committee,  i.  434. 

Laboulaye,  M.,  on  education,  ii.  21. 

Lamar,  Mr.,  of  Ga.,  financial  scheme,  i. 
36,  38- 

Lamar,  L.  Q.  C.,  of  Miss.,  speech  on  gen 
eral  politics,  ii.  353;  reply  of  Mr.  Gar- 
field,  353-387;  quoted,  355,  363,  382; 
speaks  against  White  Line,  368,  374 ; 
on  Jefferson  Davis,  765. 

Lancaster,  Earl  of,  rebellion,  i.  157,  158, 
167. 

Langdon,  John,  President  of  Senate,  ist 
Cong.,  ii.  420,  474. 

Landers,  Franklin,  of  Ind.,  on  minting 
silver  coin,  ii.  340—343. 

La  Salle,  Sieur  de,  explorations  of,  ii. 
73-76. 

Law,  John,  on  money,  ii.  250,  251,  254. 

Lawrence,  John,  of  N.  Y.,  on  money 
bills,  i.  685. 

Lawrence,  William,  of  Ohio,  on  currency, 
i.  574,  582 ;  on  canvass  in  New  York, 
ii.  424. 

Le  Caron,  discovers  Lake  Huron,  ii.  73. 

Lee,  Fitzhugh,  i.  648  ;  letters  on  Gen. 
Thomas,  651-654;  resigns  his  commis 
sion,  671. 

Lee,  Gen.  R.  E.,  in  regiment  with  Gen. 
Thomas,  i.  648 ;  resigns  his  commis 
sion,  649,  670;  conduct  contrasted  with 
Thomas's,  655,  656;  letters  of,  672,  673. 

Lee,  Thomas,  in  Ohio  Company,  ii.  78. 

Leon,  Ponce  de,  ii.  72. 

Letcher,  Gov.,  of  Va.,  i.  649,  651,  672. 

Levi,  Leone,  quoted,  i.  677. 

Lewis,  Sir  G.  C.,  on  statistics,  i.  455. 

Lewis,  Captain  Merriwether,  referred  to, 
ii.  45. 

Lieber,  Dr.  Francis,  quoted,  ii.  55. 


INDEX. 


807 


Life  Insurance,  effects  of  the  Rebellion 
on,  arguments   in    Supreme    Court,  ii. 
140-174;    case  of  Tate  v.  New  York 
Life   Ins.  Co.,  140-155  ;    case  of  New 
York  Life  Ins.  Co.  v.  Hamilton,   140, 
141  ;  cases  of  New  York  Life  Ins.  Co. 
v.  Statham,  and  Same  v.  Seyms,   156-  | 
174;   effects  of  war  on  insurance  con- , 
tracts,  150-152  ;  doctrine  of  chances  in,  j 
r58>  T59;   Per  cent  of  lapsed  policies,  j 
159-161,  171. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  quoted,  i.  70 ;  remarks 
on  memory  of,  i.  202-204;  character 
described  in  Tennyson's  lines,  203 ; 
his  Emancipation  Proclamation,  480;  j 
early  life  contrasted  with  that  of  J.  j 
Q.  Adams,  ii.  292  ;  mentioned,  363  ; 
presentation  to  Congress  of  painting 
"  Reading  the  Emancipation  Proclama 
tion,"  533  ;  Mr.  Garfield's  speech  on, 
533-542  ;  admiration  for  Declaration 
of  Independence,  537;  538 ;  devotion  to 
the  Union,  538,  539 ;  on  the  Union  and 
slavery,  539;  Proclamation  read  to  Cab 
inet,  540,  541 ;  on  the  loan  to  govern 
ment,  588,  589;  recommends  national 
banking  system,  590,  591  ;  on  State 
sovereignty,  715,  716;  threats  against 
his  election,  769;  election  of,  778. 

Lincoln,  P.  S.,  on  lapsed  policies,  ii.  160. 

Livermore,  Samuel,  of  N.  H.,  on  money 
bills,  i.  685. 

Livingston,  Wm.,  of  N.  J.,  in  Congress  at 
New  York,  ii.  466;  in  Continental  Con 
gress,  467. 

Locke,  John,  essays  on  coin,  ii.  262. 

Logan,  John  A.,  of  111.,  bill  taxing  U.  S. 
bonds,  i.  327  ;  on  army  reduction,  412, 
417,  419. 

London  Quarterly  Review,  on  railway 
monopoly,  ir.  63,  64. 

Long,  Alex.,  of  Ohio,  on  bill  for  sale  of 
gold,  i.  37. 

Louis  XIV.  of  France,  i.  704,  ii.  198. 

Louisiana,  contested  election  in,  ii.  406, 
449  seq.  ;  decisions  of  Supreme  Court 
of,  452,  453;  election  laws  of,  453-456. 

Lovejoy,  Owen,  of  111.,  on  legal  tender,  ii. 
248 ;  in  Congress,  480. 

Lowndes,  Wm.,  English  Secretary  of 
Treasury,  on  coinage,  ii.  261. 

Luther  v.  Borden,  case  of,  i.  161,  238,  395. 

Luther,  Martin,  on  education,  ii.  21. 

Lynch,  John,  of  Maine,  on  American  ship 
owners,  i.  119,  124;  on  currency,  561, 
562,  573- 


M. 


Macaulay,  T.  B.,  History,  quoted,  i.  15, 
304,  469 ;  letter  of,  on  universal  suf 
frage,  and  answer,  ii.  51-53,  606,  607  ;  on 
money,  261,  262  ;  cost  of  his  elections, 
487. 

McCarthy,  Dennis,  of  N.  Y.,  i.  537. 

McCook,  A.  G.,  of  N.  Y.,  years  of  war, 

"•  545- 

McCulloch,  Hugh,  quoted,  i.  499,  739, 
ii.  502 ;  criticised  by  Mr.  Kelley,  ii.  522, 
525  ;  recommends  reduction  of  legal 
tender  notes,  615. 

McDonald,  J.  E.,  counsel  in  cases  of  Mil- 
ligan  et  a/.,  i.  144,  147. 

McDowell,  Gen.  Irvin,  testimony  of,  i. 
417,  420;  falsely  accused  of  drunken 
ness,  ii.  583,  584. 

McDuffie,  George,  of  S.  C.,  tariff  bill, 
i.  690. 

MacGahan,  J.  A.,  career  of,  as  journalist, 
ii.  584,  585. 

Macguire,  Lord,  case  of,  i.  159. 

McLane,  R.  M.,  of  Md.,  ii.  678 ;  on  State 
sovereignty,  710,  711. 

McLeod  on  Banking,  i.  550. 

McMahon,  J.  A.,  of  Ohio,  reply  to,  ii.  694 ; 
on  Jurors  Bill,  704,  706,  707  ;  remarks 
on  decision  of  Supreme  Court,  724,  725. 

McPherson,  Edward,  History  of  Recon 
struction,  quoted,  i.  228-232,  392; 
Handbooks  of  Politics,  513,  703,  ii.  371, 
656,  679,  685. 

Madison,  James,  quoted,  i.  68,  69,  312, 
3J3»  703.  707;  referred  to,  490;  on 
money  bills,  683,  685  ;  nominated  for 
President,  ii.  478  ;  administration  of, 
479;  on  paper  money,  516,  517;  in  fa 
vor  of  tariff,  552-554,  556;  on  State 
sovereignty,  722. 

Madison  Papers,  on  currency,  i.  312,  313, 
ii.  515,  516. 

Maine,  Sir  H.  S.,  quoted,  ii.  259. 

Mann,  Horace,  on  education,  i.  130. 

Margry,  Pierre,  early  French  papers  on 
Western  discoveries,  ii.  70,  71. 

Marquette,  Father,  discoveries  of,  ii.  74. 

Marshall,  Chief  Justice,  on  martial  law, 
quoted,  i.  165  ;  decisions  of,  403,  482  ; 
Dartmouth  College  case,  ii.  61,  68;  on 
State  sovereignty,  718. 

Marshals  Bill,  ii.  708. 

Marshals,  U.  S.,  contest  over,  ii.  723- 
739  5  appropriations  for,  not  voted,  723  ; 
to  appoint  deputies,  726;  proposition 


8o3 


INDEX. 


that  Judges  appoint  deputies,  passed 
as  a  rider,  and  vetoed,  731  ;  Bayard's 
bill  passed  and  vetoed,  732  ;  speeches 
on  the  subject,  733-739 ;  objections  to 
the  bill  as  a  rider,  733  seq. 

Martial  Law,  defined,  i.  155  seq. ;  Gen. 
Gage  proclaims,  in  Boston,  and  Lord 
Dunmore  in  Virginia,  160,  161  ;  jeal 
ousy  of  our  Revolutionary  fathers  as 
to,  161,  162;  Gen.  Jackson  proclaims, 
at  New  Orleans,  164;  opinions  of  our 
courts  on,  164-166 ;  opinions  of  Lord 
Brougham  and  Sir  James  Mackintosh 
on,  166-170  ;  remarks  on,  180-182  ; 
Ku-Klux  act,  703,  727-731. 

Martin,  Rev.  Taylor,  address  of,  ii.  372. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  on  paper  money,  i. 
319,  ii.  500,  524. 

Mason,  Col.  George,  on  money  bills,  i. 
680,681. 

Mason,  Jas.  M.,  of  Va.,  on  salary  of  for-  j 
eign  ministers,  ii.  276. 

Massachusetts,  credit  of,  i.  351,  352,  406 ; 
railroad  problem  in,  ii.  67 ;  historic 
glory  of,  389. 

May,  Sir  Thos.  Erskine,  Constitutional 
History  of  England,  quoted,  i.  92 ; 
Parliamentary  Practice,  quoted,  676, 
677- 

Maynard,  Horace,  of  Tenn.,  currency  bill, 
ii.  175,  181,  182. 

Maxey,  S.  B.,  of  Texas,  on  State  sover 
eignty,  710. 

Medical  History  of  Rebellion,  i.  434-438. 

Mediterranean  Sea,  first  seat  of  civiliza 
tion,  i.  634,  ii.  49,  280. 

Mercantile  System,  i.  522. 

Mercer,  C.  F.,  of  Va.,  on  money  bills, 
i.  689. 

Mercur,  Ulysses,  of  Pa.,  i.  762. 

Meridian  Mercury,  quoted,  ii.  370,  374. 

Meredith,  Gen.  S.  A.,  letters  on  exchange 
of  prisoners,  ii.  239. 

Middle  Ages,  census  in  the,  ii.  190,  191. 

Military  Commissions,  argument  before 
the  Supreme  Court  on  the  Jurisdiction 
of,  i.  143  seq.  ;  history  of  the  cases  of 
Milligan,  Bowles,  and  Horsey,  143-147  ; 
no  jurisdiction  except  over  the  military 
and  naval  forces  of  the  United  States, 
147  seq.  ;  precedents  from  English  and 
American  history,  151  seq.  ;  derive 
their  powers  from  martial  law,  155; 
instituted  by  General  Scott  in  Mexico, 
173;  only  justified  by  necessity,  174; 
action  of  Congress  in  regard  to,  1^6- 


178  ;    remarks  in   Congress   upon  the 

subject,  180-182. 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  on  education,  i.  136, 

137;   on  money,   191;  on  government, 

ii-  355>  485- 

Miller,  Mr.  Justice,  ii.  159,  160,  461. 
Milligan,  L.   P.,  et  al.,  argument  in  the 

case  of,  i.  143  seq. 
Milton,  John,  quoted,  i.  525,  ii.  300,  377  ; 

on  truth  and  falsehood,  ii.  577. 
Minerva,  statue  of,  designed  by  Phidias, 

i.  1  80. 

Minor  v.  Happersett,  case  of,  ii.  720. 
Mississippi,  effects  of  repudiation  by,  ii. 

6n  ;  fraud  in  elections  in,  763,  764. 
Moheau,  M.,  on  statistics,  ii.  199. 
Money,  a  measure  of  value,  i.  546,  ii.  258. 

See  Honest  Money  and  Paper  Money. 
Monroe,  James,  of  Ohio,  letter  on  Miss 

Booth,  ii.  315  ;  on  Jurors  Bill,  704. 
Montague,  Edward,  ii.  262. 
Montesquieu's    Spirit   of    Laws,    quoted, 

ii.  411. 
Montgomery  v.   United   States,  case  of, 

ii.  169,  170. 
Mores,  editor  of  Evening  Post,  fined  by 

House  of  Lords,  ii.  577. 
Morgan,  G.  W.,  of  Ohio,  i.  578,  617. 
Mormon  Church,  remarks  on,  ii.  794. 
Morrell,  D.  J.,  of  Pa.,  i.  388. 
Morrill,  J.  S.,  of  Vt,  on  Cabinet  officers 

in  Congress,  i.  63,  64,  66,  67,  68  ;  men 

tioned,  386,  520. 
Morris,   Gouverneur,   i.   312  ;  on   money 

bills,  682  ;  on  paper  money,  ii.  515. 
Morris,  Robert,  on  paper  money,  i.  312  ; 

Bank  of  North  America,  489. 
Morse,   Dr.   Samuel   F.   B.,  remarks  on, 

ii.  26-29. 
Morton,  Oliver  P.,  of  Ind.,  on  Electoral 

Commission   bill,   ii.    437  ;    resolutions 

on   death  of,    529;    Mr.   Garfield's   re 

marks,   529-532. 

Mulford,  E.,  on  martial  law,  i.  729. 
Mungen,  Wm.,  of  Ohio,  i.  620. 
Mushet,  Robert,  history  of  panics,  i.  313, 


N. 

Napier's  Peninsular  War,  quoted,  i.  668. 

Napoleon,  on  statistics,  i.  455;  Louisiana 
cession,  635  ;  on  immortality,  ii.  47  '•> 
census  under,  199;  numbers  killed  in 
his  battles,  231  ;  Moniteur  on,  559. 

Napoleon  III.,  i.  704,  742. 


INDEX. 


809 


Nation,  newspaper,  quoted,  i.  639,  640, 
ii.  59. 

National  Appropriations  and  Misappro 
priations,  paper  on,  ii.  740-752.  See 
Appropriations. 

National  Banks,  system  of,  i.  190,  485- 
488 ;  reserves  of,  562 ;  regulated  by 
business  of  the  country,  564 ;  attempts 
to  abolish,  566,  626-629,  ii.  590,  591, 
601-604,  621-623;  control  currency  ac 
cording  to  laws  of  trade,  623. 

National  Election  Laws,  opposed  by  Dem 
ocratic  party,  ii.  655  seq.,  679  seq.,  708 
seq.,  767  seq.  ;  decided  constitutional  by 
Supreme  Court,  ii.  723,  724. 

National  Elections  protected  by  National 
Authority,  remarks  on,  ii.  679-684. 

National  Forces,  Enrolling  and  Calling 
out  the,  speech  on,  i.  19-34 ;  history  of, 
19-22 ;  repeal  of  commutation  clause 
necessary,  22,  30-34 ;  our  condition 
compared  with  that  of  England  in  Na 
poleon's  time,  24-27 ;  with  the  dark 
years  of  the  Revolution,  29;  right  to 
the  citizen's  personal  service,  30 ;  con 
stitutional  right,  31. 

National  Politics,  speech  on,  i.  216-242; 
financial  affairs,  216-223;  military  af- 
fairS,  223-225 ;  restoration  of  Rebel 
States,  225-242  ;  President  Johnson  and 
the  Democratic  party,  228-240 ;  the  two 
parties,  240-242. 

Necker,  M.,  work  of,  ii.  199. 

Nelson,  Mr.  Justice,  opinion  of,  quoted, 
i.  153;  appointed  to  negotiate  treaty  of 
Washington,  ii.  428. 

New  Jersey,  charters  Camden  and  Amboy 
Railroad,  i.  46;  message  from  Governor 
of,  57-60. 

New  York  Life  Ins.  Co.  v.  Hamilton, 
ii.  140,  141;  v.  Statham,  156  seq. ; 
v,  Seyms,  tb. ;  v.  Hendren,  173. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  on  money,  ii.  262. 

Niblack,  W.  E.,  of  Ind.,  on  deficit  of  rev 
enue,  ii.  101. 

Northwest  Territory,  address  on,  ii.  70- 
91  ;  appropriation  for  printing  historical 
documents  on,  70,  71  ;  early  Spanish 
and  French  discoveries,  72-76;  strug 
gle  for  national  possession,  76-80 ;  ef 
fects  of  Revolutionary  War  on,  80-83  ; 
the  Western  Reserve,  83-91 ;  conflicting 
claims  to,  83,  84,  86 ;  Virginia  cedes 
title  to,  84. 

Norway,  census  in,  ii.  202. 

Noyes,  E.  F.,  of  Ohio,  i.  732. 


O. 


O'Brien's  Military  Law,  quoted,  i.  151. 

Ocean,  scene  of  civilization,  i.  634,  ii.  48, 
49,  280,  281. 

O'Conor,  Charles,  counsel  for  Tilden  Elec 
tors,  ii.  440. 

Odell,  M.  F.,  of  N.  Y.,  i.  22  ;  report  on 
returned  prisoners,  ii.  225. 

Ohio,  education  in,  i.  133  ;  Canvass  in, 
speech  011,477-498;  Campaign  of  1871, 
speech  in,  732-760;  new  constitution 
for,  734-738;  settlement  of  Western 
Reserve,  ii.  83-91. 

Ohio  Company,  ii.  78. 

Oregon,  contested  election  in,  ii.  406. 

Orr,  Gov.,  of  S.  C.,  i.  235. 

Otis,  James,  and  Congress  of  1765,  ii.  466. 

Ould,  Robert,  Rebel  agent  for  exchange 
of  prisoners,  ii.  239. 


P. 


Pacific  Ocean,  future  seat  of  civilization, 
i.  634,  ii.  49,  280. 

Pacific  Railroad,  i.  630. 

Page,  John,  of  Va.,  on  money  bills,  i.  685. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  letter  to  Edinburgh 
Presbytery,  i.  454. 

Paper  money,  evils  of  irredeemable,  185, 
195,  294  seq.,  319,  ii.  264  seq.,  490,  600 
seq.,  613  seq. ;  State  bank  system,  i.  489- 
495,  ii.  603,  604;  no  President  or  Secre 
tary  of  Treasury  in  favor  of,  ii.  492,  515; 
authorities  against  it,  515  seq.;  a  forced 
loan,  519-522  ;  not  real  money,  598. 

Parker,  Joel,  Gov.  of  N.  J.,  message  of,  as 
to  State  sovereignty,  i.  57-60. 

Parsons,  Prof.  Theophilus,  on  negro  suf 
frage,  i.  90. 

Partisanship,  remarks  on,  ii.  532. 

Patterson,  Gen.  Robert,  on  Gen.  Thomas, 

i-  653- 

Patterson,  R.  H.,  on  currency,  i.  548. 
Pease,  Seth,  Connecticut  Land  Company, 

ii.  86,  87.     . 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  on  Bullion  Report,  i. 

193;  his  Currency  Act,  547. 
Peirce,  Prof.  Benjamin,  on  census,  i.  462. 
Pendleton,  Geo.  H.,  of  Ohio,  i.  61,  63,  75, 

80,  82,  83,  478,  481  ;  greenback  theory, 

3°8»  39i i  579.   ii-  36,   77M  on  paying 

bonds  in  currency,  i.  329,  752. 
Penn,  William,  on  public  schools,  i.  133. 
Pennsylvania,  education  in,  i.  133-1 35- 


Sio 


INDEX. 


Perce,  L.  W.,  of  Miss.,  bill  to  establish 
educational  fund,  ii.  19. 

Perkins,  J.  H.,  quoted,  ii.  80. 

Perry,  A.  F.,  of  Ohio,  ii.  33. 

Perry,  Sampson,  trial  for  libel,  ii.  577. 

Peters,  J.  A.,  of  Maine,  on  revenue  bills, 
i.  699,  700. 

Petty,  Sir  William,  on  population,  ii.  193. 

Philippine  Islands,  sugar  in,  ii.  648. 

Phillimore,  Sir  J.  R.,  definition  of  a  state, 
i.  99. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  ii.  362. 

Piegan  Massacre,  i.  380-382. 

Pike,  F.  A.,  of  Maine,  on  shipping,  i.  121 ; 
on  taxing  bonds,  327-352,  361. 

Pilgrim  Compact,  ii.  360,  760,  769. 

Pinckney,  Chas.  C.,  on  Presidential  elec 
tions,  ii.  397  ;  on  State  sovereignty,  714, 

7i5- 

Plaquemines  frauds,  ii.  399,  400. 

Platt,  T.  C.,  of  N.  Y.,  letter  to,  on  Elmira 
prison,  ii.  232. 

Political  Issues  of  1868,  speech  on,  i.  390- 
407;  of  1870,  speech  on,  610-631;  of 
1872,  ii.  30-45. 

Political  Parties  unknown  to  the  Constitu 
tion,  ii.  693. 

Polk,  President,  vote  of  Louisiana  for, 
carried  by  fraud,  ii.  399,  400. 

Pomeroy,  T.  M.,  of  N.  Y.,  i.  361. 

Pontchartrain,  Minister  of  Louis  XIV.,  i. 

733. 

Porter,  Augustus,  Connecticut  Land  Com 
pany,  ii.  86. 

Prentiss,  S.  S.,  of  Miss.,  on  party  patron 
age,  i.  510,  511. 

Prescott,  Wm.  H.,  on  free  trade,  i.  211. 

Presidential  Campaign  of  1872,  speech  on, 
ii.  30-45. 

Presidential  Elections,  speeches  on,  ii. 
393-462 ;  powers  of  Congress  as  to, 
394  seq. ;  no  right  to  reject  Electoral 
votes,  397  seq. ;  Constitutional  pro 
visions,  394  seq.,  410  seq. ;  contested  vote 
in,  406  seq.  ;  debate  in  Constitutional 
Convention,  410  seq.  ;  22d  joint  rule  un 
constitutional,  421,  422  ;  propositions 
assented  to  by  Mr.  Garfield,  433,  434. 

Press,  address  on,  ii.  575-585  ;  restriction 
of  freedom  of,  575  seq.  ;  its  freedom 
first  established  by  our  Constitution, 
578  ;  necessary  to  free  government,  579, 
583;  duty  of  journalists,  579,  580;  inde 
pendent  journalism,  581,  582;  tendency 
to  license,  583 ;  intelligence  of  its  cor 
respondents,  584,  1585. 


I  Price,  Prof.  Bonamy,  on  checks,  i.  547. 

Price,  Dr.  Richard,  life  tables,  ii.  192. 

Prices,  Young's  table  of,  i.  291  ;  doctrine 
of,  529-532 ;  Tooke's  History  of,  i.  529, 
ii.  500,  524. 

Prize  Cases,  i.  5. 

Prosser,  W.  F.,  of  Tenn.,  i.  378. 

Protection.    See  Tariff. 

Prussia,  census  of,  ii.  200. 

Prynn,  Counsellor,  argument  in  trial  of 
Lord  Macguire,  quoted,  i.  159. 

Public  Credit,  strengthening  of,  bill  for,  i. 
439 ;  remarks  on,  440-442 ;  improve 
ment  of,  by  Gen.  Grant's  election,  621. 

Public  Debt,  speech  on,  i.  183-201  ;  a 
sacred  obligation,  186;  Republican  man 
agement  of,  620,621  ;  table  showing  re 
duction  of,  ii.  9. 

Public  Expenditures,  i.  617-619;  speech 
on,  ii.  1-18 ;  relation  of  revenue  to,  2 ; 
of  population,  3  ;  of  increase  in  number 
of  States,  4 ;  effect  of  war  upon,  5-7,  741 
seq.  ;  increase  of,  in  England,  in  Napo 
leonic  and  Crimean  wars,  6 ;  in  the 
United  States,  6,  7  ;  reduction  of  public 
debt,  8,  9;  amounts  for  year  1871,  n 
seq. ;  British  expenditures  for  year  1871, 
15;  appropriations  for  1873,  15-18. 

Puffendorf,  cited,  i.  loo. 


Q- 


Quetelet,  L.  A.  Q.,  Baron,  quoted,  i.  456 ; 

on  vital  statistics,  ii.  158,  199. 
Quincy,  Josiah,  ii.  392. 


R. 


Railway  Problem,  dangers  of,  ii.  55-68; 
what  our  society  has  done  for  the  locomo 
tive,  56-58  ;  what  it  has  done  to  society, 
58  seq. ;  investigation  of,  in  Great  Brit 
ain,  63,  64;  remedies  suggested,  67,  68. 

Randall,  H.  S.,  Macaulay's  letter  to,  ii.  51. 

Randall,  S.  J.,  of  Penn.,  i.  583,  ii.  218,  221, 
279. 

Randolph,  Edmund,  on  money  bills,  i. 
681,  682;  on  executive  office,  ii.  410. 

Randolph,  John,  in  Congress,  ii.  480. 

Randolph,  Peyton,  chairman  of  Conti 
nental  Congress,  ii.  467. 

Ranney,  Rufus  P.,  Judge,  on  public  debt, 
i.  401 ;  candidate  for  Governor  of  Ohio, 
478;  on  Ohio  constitution,  734,  735. 


INDEX. 


Sir 


Rauget,  Mr.,  non-exportable  circulation, 
ii.  250. 

Raymond,  H.  J.,  of  N.  Y.,  theory  of  re 
construction,  i.  98,  101,  249. 

Reagan,  J.  H.,  of  Texas,  ii.  229,  230. 

Rebellion,  loyalty  of  Tennessee  during, 
i.  116;  opposition  to  suppression  of,  at 
the  North,  i.  143,  ii.  244,  245. 

Reconstruction,  Pres.  Johnson's  plan  for, 
i.  95,  228-240;  different  theories  of,  98; 
condition  of  the  Rebel  States,  101  seq. ; 
conquered  by  the  government,  105  seq.  ; 
President  and  Congress  to  determine 
what  to  be  done,  106 ;  freedom  given 
to  the  black  man,  107 ;  practical  meas 
ures  to  be  adopted,  no,  ill;  spirit  of 
Mississippi  and  Tennessee,  112,  113; 
lesson  from  the  Jewish  nation,  116, 
117;  remarks  on,  225-264;  Reconstruc 
tion  Acts,  243-248  ;  failure  of  previous 
plans,  248 ;  army  to  be  used,  250-263 ; 
bill  of  Mr.  Bingham  of  Ohio,  257 ;  ad 
mission  of  Georgia,  263,  264,  614  ;  re 
view  of,  393-398  ;  completed,  61 5. 

Reed,  T.  B.,  of  Maine,  ii.  735. 

Republic,  Future  of,  address  on,  ii.  46-69; 
permanency  of,  47  ;  dangers  not  from 
without,  48  seq. ;  universal  suffrage,  50 
seq.;  Macaulay's  letter  on,  51-53;  re 
marks  on  it,  53-55,  ii.  606,  607  ;  the 
railway  problem,  i.  55-68 ;  education 
our  hope  for  the  future,  68,  69. 

Republican  Party,  management  of  finance, 
i.  398-402,  615  seq.,  741  seq. ;  honorable 
record  of,  611-613,  620,  621,  629,  631, 
740  seq.,  ii.  36-39,  778-780;  tariff  re 
vision  by,  i.  751 ;  contrasted  with  Demo 
cratic  party,  759,760,11.379;  disaffec 
tion  in,  in  Grant's  first  administra 
tion,  ii.  30 ;  alleged  corruptions  in,  44, 
385 ;  opposed  to  slavery,  379. 

Restoration  of  the  Southern  States,  speech 
on,  i.  95-117.  See  Reconstruction. 

Resumption.     See  Specie  Payments. 

Resumption  Act,  speech  against  repeal  of, 
ii.  490-509  ;  Mr.  Kelley's  reply,  510 ; 
answer  to  Mr.  Kelley,  510-528;  passage 
of,  in  1875,  619- 

Revenue,  of  U.  S.,  i.  615-617,  619,  745 
seq.  ;  relation  of,  to  expenditures,  ii.  2  ; 
should  exceed  expenditure,  98  ;  deficit 
in  1841-42,  during  Mexican  war,  and  in 
Buchanan's  administration,  100 ;  large 
revenue  from  sugar,  ii.  638, 646 ;  manner 
of  levying  duties  on,  641  seq.  ;  collection 
of,  most  difficult  problem,  740. 


Revenue  Bills,  speech  on  right  to  origi 
nate,  i.  674-701  ;  conflict  of  Senate  and 
House,  674  ;  debate  in  Constitutional 
Convention,  678-683  ;  in  British  Parlia 
ment,  683,  684  ;  practice  of  Congress, 
685-695 ;  summary,  695-698 ;  debate  in 
420!  Congress,  698-701. 

Revenues  and  Expenditures,  speech  on, 
ii.  96-128.  See  Expenditures. 

Rice,  A.  V.,  of  Ohio,  on  pension  bill,  ii. 
764,  765  ;  on  election  law,  768. 

Riddle,  A.  G.,  picture  of  Almeda  A. 
Booth,  ii.  296. 

Riders  on  appropriation  bills,  ii.  655,  656, 

659,  673,  681,  733-735- 
Rives,  F.  E.,  of  Virginia,  i.  600. 
Robbins,  W.  M.,  of  N.  C.,  on  sugar  tariff, 

ii.  637,  644,  645,  649,  653. 

Roberts,  E.  H.,  of  N.  Y.,  ii.  127,  128. 

Robertson,  John,  of  Va.,  on  money  bills, 
i.  689. 

Robeson,  G.  M.,  of  N.  J.,  ii.  774. 

Rogers,  Major  Robert,  takes  Detroit,  ii.  79. 

Rogers,  A.  J.,  of  N.  J.,  i.  44,  714. 

Rome,  view  of,  compared  with  that  of 
Washington,  i.  325,  326;  symbol  of  im 
mortality,  ii.  47  ;  census  of,  188  seq. 

Rosecrans,  Gen.  W.  S.,  nomination  for 
Governor  of  Ohio,  i.  479-481 ;  hostility 
to  Gen.  Grant,  480  ;  Garfield's  views 
of,  498 ;  in  Army  of  the  Cumberland, 

660,  664 ;  letter  to,  767-772;  resolution 
of  thanks  to,  remarks  on,  775-779. 

Ross,  L.  W.,  of  111.,  i.  308. 

Ruggles,  S.  B.,  delegate  to  Statistical 
Congress,  i.  469. 

Rutledge,  John,  in  Congress  at  New 
York,  ii.  466;  in  Constitutional  Con 
vention,  467. 


S. 


St.  Clair,  Gen  Arthur,  defeat  of,  i.  67, 

ii.  85  ;  investigation  by  Congress,  i.  68  ; 

Governor  of  Northwest  Territory,  ii.  89. 
San  Domingo,  unwise  policy  in  reference 

to,  ii.  37. 

Sandwich  Islands.    See  tfawaiian  Islands. 
Sargent,  A.  A.,  of  Cal.,  i.  507,  509,  515. 
Say,  J.  B.,  ii.  258. 
Say,  Leon,  French  Minister,  details  officer 

to  report  on  U.  S.  silver  mines,  ii.  331  ; 

instructions  to,  ib. 
Schenck,  Robert  C.,  of  Ohio,  i.  21,  520, 

S^i,  533-536,  542. 


812 


INDEX. 


Schleicher,  Gustave,  of  Texas,  difficulties 
on  Southern  border,  ii.  546;  remarks 
on  the  death  of,  632-636 ;  services  to 
Texas,  634,  635 ;  character,  636. 

Schofield,  Gen.  J.  M.,  testimony  of,  on 
army,  i.  417. 

Schuckers,  J.  W.,  publishes  letter  of  Mr. 
Garfield  to  Secretary  Chase,  i.  772-774; 
pamphlet  of,  ii.  523,  524. 

Schurz,  Carl,  on  the  Democratic  party, 
ii.  34. 

Scotland,  census  in,  ii.  194,  195. 

Scott,  Gen.  Winfield,  on  Gen.  R.  E.  Lee, 
i.  671  ;  remark  of,  ii.  244. 

Seddon,  J.  A.,  Confederate  Secretary  of 
War,  ii.  229,  230. 

Semmes  v.  Hartford  Ins.  Co.,  case  of,  ii. 
154,  169. 

Serapis,  statue  of,  illustration  of  slavery, 
i.  109. 

Servius  Tullius,  Roman  census,  ii.  188-190. 

Seward,  Wm.  H.,  i.  12,  73  ;  on  Pacific 
Railroad,  630 ;  on  money  bills,  692- 
694,  698;  on  slavery,  ii.  363;  in  Lin 
coln's  Cabinet,  536;  letter  of  instruc 
tions  to  Minister  Adams,  537. 

Seymour,  Horatio,  i.  391,  484  ;  quoted,  398. 

Seyms,  Charlotte,  case  of,  ii.  156-174. 

Shanklin,  G.  S.,  of  Ken.,  i.  714. 

Shanks,  J.  P.  C.,  of  Ind.,  i.  506. 

Shelburne,  Lord,  on  American  Loyalists, 
i.  8. 

Shellabarger,  Samuel,  of  Ohio,  i.  100; 
quoted,  512  ;  on  Ku-Klux  Act,  702, 
703,  708,  716-720,  725,  726,  731. 

Sherman,  John,  of  Ohio,  i.  556;  on  frac 
tional  currency,  ii.  333  ;  speech  on  nom 
ination  of,  777-781. 

Sherman,  Roger,  on  paper  money,  i.  313; 
on  money  bills,  682 ;  in  Continental 
Congress,  ii.  467  ;  on  State  sovereignty. 
721,  722. 

Sherman,  Gen.  W.  T.,  on  Indian  affairs, 
i.  366-368 ;  on  Gen.  Thomas,  653,  654, 
662,  666. 

Shipping,  American,  speech  on,  i.  118- 
125;  bill  relating  to,  118;  our  laws 
borrowed1  from  English  Navigation 
Laws,  118;  remarks  by  Mr.  Lynch,  of 
Maine,  119;  Mr.  Eliot,  of  Massachu 
setts,  1 20 ;  Mr.  Pike,  of  Maine,  120,  121 ; 
decrease  of  ocean  tonnage,  123;  monop 
oly  in  the  building  of  coasting  vessels, 
124;  our  shipbuilders  cannot  compete 
with  those  of  the  Clyde,  125. 

Shrewsbury,  Earl  of,  case  of,  ii.  165,  166. 


Silver  Question,  phases  of  the,  remarks 
on,  ii.  329-352  ;  proposal  to  substitute 
silver  for  fractional  currency,  329  seq.; 
silver  cheaper,  333  seq,;  silver  as  a 
standard  of  value,  336  ;  its  ratio  to  gold, 
337  ;  Landers  amendment  to  silver  bill, 
340-343;  illustration  by  Hell  Gate  ex 
plosion,  344;  relation  between  silver 
and  gold,  343-350  ;  Silver  Commission, 
345,  346 ;  excessive  coinage  of  silver, 
35i»  352. 

Sinclair,  Sir  John,  on  census,  ii.  194. 

Singleton,  O.  R.,  of  Miss.,  quoted,  ii.  362, 

363- 

Slade,  Wm.,  of  Vt.,  i.  598. 

Slavery,  growth  of  sentiment  against,  in 
the  army,  i  n,  253,  254;  Constitutional 
Amendment  abolishing,  73-84 ;  hard  to 
die,  73  seq.,  84 ;  compared  to  statue  of 
Serapis,  109  ;  plantation  of,  in  Amer 
ica,  ii.  360  ;  central  idea  of  Democratic 
party,  361  seq.;  Republican  party  op 
posed  to,  379  ;  despotism  of,  760  seq. 

Smith,  Adam,  quoted,  i.  523. 

Smith,  Gerritt,  i.  609. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  on  American  people 
during  the  war,  ii.  625,  626. 

Smith,  Rev.  John,  missionary  at  Deme- 
rara,  i.  166-170. 

Smith,  J.  Q.,  Indian  commissioner,  i.  380. 

Smith,  Sydney,  on  classical  learning,  i. 
281,  282. 

Smithsonian  Institution,  remarks  on,  i. 
430-433  ;  services  of  Prof.  Henry  to, 
ii.  629-631. 

Snapp,  H.,  of  111.,  i.  506,  515. 

Snow,  Dr.  E.  M.,  letter  to  Census  Com 
mittee,  i.  475. 

Soft  Money,  doctrine  of,  ii.  249  seq. 

Soldiers'  Graves,  Flowers  on,  oration,  i. 
322-326. 

Solid  South,  ii.  760-767. 

Solon,  census  by,  ii.  187. 

Somers,  John,  Baron,  ii.  262. 

Southard,  M.  I.,  of  Ohio,  rider  to  appro 
priation  bill,  ii.  656. 

South  Carolina,  contested  election  in,  ii. 
406. 

Spaulding,  E.  G.,  of  N.  Y.,  on  five-twenty 
bonds,  i.  357,  358,  361. 

Spaulding,  R.  P.,  of  Ohio,  i.  120,  187. 

Specie  Payments,  speech  on,  i.  183-201  ; 
return  to,  190  seq.  ;  contraction  of  the 
currency  tends  to,  315  ;  bill  for  gradual 
return  to,  316;  resumption  of,  in  Eng 
land,  318,  319;  resumption  of,  on  frac- 


JNDEX. 


813 


tional  currency,  ii.  333  seq. ;  bill  to 
repeal  Resumption  Act,  490;  opposi 
tion  to  resumption  of,  594  seq. ;  duty  of 
resumption  of,  599  seq. ;  resumption 
of,  celebrated  in  Chicago,  609,  610; 
address  011,610—626;  completes  Union 
victory,  610;  importance  of  maintaining 
the  national  faith,  61 1 ;  evils  of  the  green 
back,  612  seq.  ;  Resumption  Act  of  1875, 
619;  opposition  to,  620  seq. ;  benefits  of 
return  to,  624,  625,  758. 

Speed,  James,  Att.-Gen.,  in  cases  of  Mil- 
ligan  et  a/.,  i.  144,  155. 

Spencer,  Ambrose,  testimony  as  to  An- 
dersonville,  ii.  228. 

Spotswood,  Gov.  of  Va.,  quoted,  i.  524,  ii. 
559 ;  discovers  pass  to  the  West,  ii.  77. 

Stanberry,  Henry,  counsel  in  cases  of 
Milligan  et  «/.,  i.  144. 

Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  letter  on  prisoners, 
ii.  224 ;  in  Lincoln's  Cabinet,  536. 

Starkweather,  Henry  H.,  resolutions  on 
death  of,  ii.  286 ;  remarks  on,  286-289. 

State,  definition  of,  i.  99  seq.  ;  difference 
between  a  State  of  the  Union  and  a 
sovereign  state,  99,  100 ;  "  in  the  Un 
ion,"  meaning  of,  100  seq. 

State  Bank  system,  evils  of,  i.  489-495, 
567-569,  ii.  603,  604,  623. 

State  Sovereignty,  claimed  for  New  Jer 
sey,  i.  57 ;  definition  of,  i.  58-60,  99, 
100  ;  States  not  sovereign,  but  the 
people,  77-82.  Revived  Doctrine  of, 
speech  on,  ii.  708-722  ;  Marshals  Bill, 
708  ;  dangerous  opinions,  709  ;  "  no 
United  States  voters,*'  709-711,  720; 
attempted  legislation,  712;  the  people 
the  only  sovereign,  713-717;  national 
authority  lodged  in  the  Constitution, 
714  ;  sovereignty  defined,  716,  717  ; 
United  States  a  nation,  719;  opinion 
of  First  Congress,  721,  722;  pernicious 
doctrine  of,  778,  782. 

Statham,  A.  D.,  case  of,  ii.  156^. 

Statistical  Congress,  ii.  204. 

Statistics,  origin  and  definition  of,  i.  445, 
446,  452  ;  results  of,  453  seq. ;  census, 
456  seq. ;  of  population  and  mortality, 
463  seq.  ;  of  agriculture,  ii.  467  seq.  ; 
of  industry,  469  seq. ;  of  commerce, 
472  seq. ;  social  statistics,  473  seq. 
Stephens,  A.  H.,  of  Ga.,  i.  236,  ii.  242, 

665,  667. 

Stephenson,  George,  first  locomotive,  ii. 
56;  on  competition,  63. 


Stevens,  Thaddeus,  of  Penn.,  i.  4,  103, 
189,  192,  197,  199,  200,  752,  775,  ii.  480, 
492 ;  on  taxation  for  public  schools,  i. 
134,  135;  on  tariff,  210;  on  reconstruc 
tion,  256 ;  on  the  five-twenty  bonds, 
356-363  ;  on  1 4th  Amendment,  712- 
714  ;  on  legal  tender,  ii.  248,  518. 

Storrs,  Rev.  Dr.  R.  S.,  quoted,  ii.  386. 

Story,  Mr.  Justice,  cited  and  quoted,  i. 
78-81,  707,  ii.  148,  715. 

Strikes,  remarks  on,  ii.  548-550. 

Strong,  Caleb,  on  money  bills,  i.  682. 

Strong,  Mr.  Justice,  quoted,  ii.  521. 

Suffrage  and  Safety,  oration  on,  i.  85- 
94 ;  right  of  negro  to  suffrage,  86  seq., 
108,  1 14 ;  no  restriction  on  account  of 
color,  88 ;  development  of  suffrage  in 
the  British  empire,  91-93;  cause  of  civil 
war  in  Rome,  115. 

Sugar,  speech  on  tariff  bill  of  Mr.  Rob- 
bins,  ii.  637-654 ;  large  revenue  from, 
638,  646 ;  raw  sugars  unfit  for  con 
sumption,  638 ;  sugar-mite,  639 ;  busi 
ness  of  refining,  640,  647  seq.  ;  manner 
of  levying  duties  on,  641  seq. ;  polari- 
scope  test,  644,  649  seq.  ;  objections  to 
the  bill,  647-649 ;  manufacture  of,  in 
Philippine  Islands,  648. 

Sumner,  Charles,  i.  556,  609,  694,  ii.  44, 
249,  480. 

Supreme  Court  of  United  States,  decis 
ions  of,  in  Prize  Cases,  i.  5;  as  to  mili 
tary  duty,  32  ;  as  to  commerce  between 
the  States,  56  ;  that  sovereignty  of  the 
Colonies  was  in  the  Crown,  78  ;  Presi 
dent  may  establish  provisional  govern 
ment,  105 ;  cases  of  Milligan,  Bowles, 
and  Horsey  in,  143  seq.  ;  in  case  of 
Dorr  rebellion  (Luther  v.  Borden),  161, 
238,  395  ;  as  to  taxation  of  U.  S.  bonds, 
340,  353>  403  ;  legal  tender,  565,  566,  627, 
ii.  521,  522;  Cohens  v.  Virginia,  State 
rights,  i.  707  ;  citizenship,  720  ;  Dart 
mouth  College  case,  ii.  61,  68 ;  case 
of  Dermott  v.  Jones,  144,  145 ;  case  of 
The  William  Bagaley,  146-148;  con 
tracts  between  enemies  invalid,  148 ; 
in  New  York  Life  Ins  Co.  cases,  156, 
157;  on  judicial  department,  451,  452 ; 
in  Virginia  v.  West  Virginia,  461 ;  State 
of  Georgia  not  sovereign,  716  ;  on  elec 
tion  laws,  720,  723,  724. 

Swayne,  Mr.  Justice,  quoted,  ii.  144,  145. 

Sweden,  census  in,  ii.  191. 

Switzerland,  census  in,  ii.  203. 


8i4 


INDEX. 


T. 


Talleyrand,  definition  of  language,  i.  738. 
Taney,  Chief  Justice,  decisions  of,  i.  395, 

403- 

Tariff.  Speech  on  Bill  of  1866,  i.  205- 
215;  Morrill  Bill,  205;  free  trade  and 
protection,  206  seq.,  521  seq.,  528;  in 
Great  Britain,  206,  207,  212;  not  sec 
tional,  213.  Speech  on  Bill  of  1870, 
520-542  ;  history  of  protection  in  U.  S., 
522-540 ;  specific  duties,  534 ;  on  iron, 
535,  536 ;  Hamilton  Tariff,  537  ;  Clay 
Tariff,  538.  Reduction  of,  619 ;  remarks 
on,  624-626;  necessity  for  revision  of, 
748  seq.  Speech  on  Wood  Tariff  Bill, 
ii.  551-570 ;  protection  constitutional, 
552  seq. ;  for  revenue  only,  557  seq.  ; 
tendency  to  extremes  in  legislation  on, 
564  seq.  ;  defects  and  errors  of  Wood 
Bill,  565  seq.  Speech  on  the  Sugar 
Tariff  bill  of  Mr.  Robbins,  637-654; 
large  revenue  from,  638,  646 ;  manner 
of  levying  duties  on,  641  seq. ;  objec 
tions  to  the  bill,  647  seq. 

Tate  v.  New  York  Life  Ins.  Co.,  ii.  140^. 

Taxation,  of  U.  S.  bonds,  i.  327-355,  403- 
406,  482 ;  complaints  of  heavy  taxation, 
402  ;  reduction  of,  532  seq.,  619,  746  seq. 

Taylor,  Gen.  Dick,  i.  234. 

Taylor  v.  Caldwell,  case  of,  ii.  143,  144. 

Telegraphic  Communications,  power  of 
the  House  over,  ii.  403-405. 

Tennessee,  Gov.  Brownlow  on  admission 
of  Congressional  delegation,  i.  1 12,  113; 
loyalty  of,  through  Rebellion,  116. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  quoted,  i.  203,  670,  ii. 

69*  319,  536>  58o>  626>  776. 

Thirteenth  Amendment,  speech  on,  i.  73- 
84;  noticed,  709,  ii.  366. 

Thomas,  B.  F.,  of  Mass.,  i.  358,  362,  ii.  520. 

Thomas,  Gen.  George  H.,  quoted,  i.  14 ; 
oration  on  his  life  and  character,  643- 
673 ;  birth  and  descent,  645 ;  enters 
West  Point  Academy,  646 ;  in  Mexican 
and  Seminole  wars,  646,  647  ;  Major  of 
2d  Cavalry,  648 ;  its  officers  chiefly 
Southerners,  ib. ;  false  charges  of  sym 
pathy  with  Rebellion,  650;  statements 
of  Generals  Hartsuff,  Johnson,  Patter 
son,  and  Sherman,  652-654;  letter  to 
Col.  A.  A.  Hough,  654 ;  contrasted  with 
Gen.  R.  E.  Lee,  655,  656 ;  in  Army  of 
the  Cumberland,  657  seq.  ;  at  Battle  of 
Mill  Springs,  659 ;  at  Stone  River  and 


Chickamauga,  664,  665;  his  defeat  of 
Hood,  666,  667 ;  compared  with  Taylor 
and  Wellington,  668 ;  joint  resolution 
of  thanks  to,  775-779. 

Thompson,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  gift  of  paint 
ing  of  "  Reading  the  Emancipation  Proc 
lamation,"  ii.  533,  534. 

Thomson,  Charles,  Secretary  of  Conti 
nental  Congress,  ii.  467,  468. 

Thurman,  A.  G.,  on  Electoral  Commis 
sion,  ii.  437,  451  ;  on  redress  of  griev 
ances,  659,  660  ;  on  pension  bill,  765. 

Tilden,  Samuel  J.,  ii.  377,  378;  contested 
election,  406  seq.,  435  seq.,  449  seq. 

Tod,  Gov.  David,  of  Ohio,  i.  390. 

Tooke,  Thomas,  History  of  Prices,  noticed, 
i.  529,  ii.  500;  quoted,  ii.  524. 

Toombs,  Robert,  address  to  legislature  of 
Georgia,  ii.  373. 

Townsend,  Washington,  of   Penn.,  i.  586, 

589- 

Townshend,  R.  W.,  of  Illinois,  ii.  733. 
Tracy,  B.  F.,  letter  on  Elmira  prison,  ii. 

232. 
Troops  at  the  Polls,  remarks  on,  ii.  695- 

702. 
Trumbull,  John,  painting  of  Declaration 

of  Independence,  ii.  535,  541. 
Trumbull,  Lyman,   of   111.,    reports    I3th 

Amendment,  i.  73. 
Tucker,  J.  R.,  of  Va.,  ii.  241-244,  378,  383 ; 

speech    on    Wood     Tariff    Bill,    551  ; 

quoted,  561,  562;  on  sugar  tariff,  637, 

652  ;  on  army  bill,  675,  682. 
Tucker,  St.  George,  on  election  of  Presi 
dent,  ii.  418,  419. 
Tucker,  T.  T.,  of  S.  C.,  on  money  bills, 

1.685. 


U. 


Ulpian,  on  census,  quoted,  ii.  190. 
United  States,  census  in,  ii.  204  seq. 
United    States  v,  Grossmayer,  case  of,  ii. 

IS'- 
United  States  v.  Lapene,  case  of,  ii.  148, 

IS1- 

United  States  Bank,  established,  i.  490. 

United  States  Bonds,  speeches  on  Taxa 
tion  of,  i.  327-363  ;  reply  to  Mr.  Pike  of 
Maine  and  Mr.  Butler  of  Mass.,  327 
seq.;  Daniel  Webster  on,  353-355; 
Thaddeus  Stevens  on,  356-363. 

Upson,  W.  H.,  of  Ohio,  i.  535. 


INDEX.     • 


815 


V. 


Vallandigham,  C.  L.,  of  Ohio,  i.  16,  17, 
235,  358,  480,  732»  758>  "•  244,  377,  37$, 
770. 

Value,  measure  of,  n.  597  seq. 

Vanderlyn,  John,  painting  of  Discovery  of 
America,  ii.  535. 

Vansittart,  Nicholas,  Lord  Bexley,  reso 
lution  of,  ii.  624. 

Vattel,  cited,  i.  100. 

Vauban,  S.,  Marshal  of  France,  book  on 
census,  ii.  198. 

Vermont,  choice  of  Presidential  Electors 
in  1796,  ii.  398. 

Virginia,  cedes  title  to  Northwest  Terri 
tory,  ii.  84 ;  immortal  names  of,  389 ; 
boundary  dispute  with  West  Virginia, 
460, 461 ;  only  State  denying  the  power 
of  tariff  for  protection,  554. 

Voorhees,  D.  W.,  of  Ind.,  ii.  526. 


W. 

Wade,  B.  F.,  of  Ohio,  letter  to,  on  prison 
ers,  ii.  224;  in  Congress,  480. 

Wales,  census  in,  ii.  194  scq. 

Walker,  Gen.  Francis  A.,  Indian  Com 
missioner,  i.  380 ;  schedule  for  census, 
472,  ii.  213. 

Walker,  C.  C.  B.,  of  N.  Y.,  ii.  232. 

Wall,  Governor,  of  Goree,  trial  of,  for 
abuse  of  military  power,  i.  160. 

Wallace,  Wm.  A.,  of  Penn.,  on  State 
sovereignty,  ii.  709-711,  721. 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  quoted,  i.  526. 

Washington,  view  of,  compared  with 
Rome,  i.  325,  326. 

Washington,  Augustine  and  Lawrence, 
form  Ohio  Company,  ii.  78. 

Washington,  George,  quoted,  i.  138,  139; 
expedition  to  the  Ohio,  ii.  78  ;  specu 
lator  in  Western  lands,  So;  sagacity 
in  the  Indian  war,  85  ;  noticed,  389  ; 
ceremony  under  his  administration,  475 
scq.;  on  paper  money,  516;  in  favor  of 
tariff,  554. 

Washington,  Justice  Bushrod,  quoted,  i. 
150. 

Wayne,  Gen.  Anthony,  defeat  of  the  In 
dians,  ii.  85. 

Webster,  Daniel,  on  paper  money,  i.  185, 
195,  296,  312,  ii.  176,  267,  490;  on  taxa 
tion  of  U.  S.  bonds,  i.  353-355;  on  Rev 
olutionary  pensions,  428 ;  on  appoint 


ing  power,  510;  on  money  bills,  687; 
opposes  State  sovereignty,  ii.  718. 

Webster,  Pelatiah,  on  Continental  money, 
i.  311. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  defines  martial  law, 
i.  157;  compared  with  Gen.  Thomas, 
668,  670 ;  number  killed  in  his  battles, 
ii.  231. 

Wells,  David  A.,  Commissioner  of  Reve 
nue,  report  of,  i.  383-389;  on  exports, 
ii.  512. 

Wells,  Erastus,  of  Missouri,  on  wastage 
of  fractional  currency,  ii.  339. 

Wentworth,  John,  of  Illinois,  on  reducing 
the  currency,  ii.  615. 

Western  Reserve,  organization  and  settle 
ment  of,  ii.  83-91. 

Western  Reserve  College,  foundation  of, 
ii.  91. 

Western  Reserve  Eclectic  Institute,  made 
Hiram  College,  i.  265 ;  Almeda  A.  Booth 
at,  ii.  301  seq. 

West  Virginia,  boundary  dispute  with 
Virginia,  ii.  460,  461. 

Wharton's  Law  Lexicon  on  martial  law, 

i-  157- 

Whiskey  Ring,  i.  495. 

White  Line,  or  League,  armed  military 
organization,  ii.  367-369,  374. 

Whitney,  Eli,  cotton  gin,  i.  595,  596. 

Whittlesey,  Hon.  Elisha,  i.  594. 

Whyte,  W.  P.,  of  Md.,  on  State  sover 
eignty,  ii.  710,  711. 

Wilkinson,  M.  S.,  of  Minnesota,  i.  541. 

Willard,  C.  W.,  of  Vt.,  bill  of,  i.  513,  518  ; 
on  census  of  1870,  763. 

Willes,  Sir  John,  orders  the  arrest  of 
members  of  a  court  martial,  i.  152. 

William  Bagaley,  case  of  the,  ii.  146,  148, 
168. 

Williams,  C.  G.,  of  Wise.,  on  troops  at 
the  polls,  ii.  701,  702. 

Williams,  G.  H.,  of  Oregon,  resolution  of, 
on  currency,  i.  556. 

Williams,  J.  S.,  of  Ky.,  on  State  sover 
eignty,  ii.  710. 

Williams,  Roger,  founder  of  liberty  of 
opinion  in  America,  ii.  578. 

Williamson,  Hugh,  on  money  bills,  i.  683. 

Wilson,  Henry,  of  Mass.,  i.  694. 

Wilson,  J.  F.,  of  Iowa,  resolution  on  con 
fiscation  of  Rebel  property,  i.  2  seq. ; 
mentioned,  77;  on  the  tariff,  210,  213. 
214. 

Wilson,  Mr.  Justice,  opinion  quoted,  ii. 
716. 


8i6 


INDEX. 


Wilson  v.  MacKenzie,  case  of,  i.  153. 

Winder,  Gen.  J.  H.,  commander  at  An- 
dersonville,  ii.  226-231,  239;  brutality 
condemned  by  other  Confederate  offi 
cers,  228,  229;  sustained  by  Jefferson 
Davis,  230. 

Windom,  Wm.,  of  Minnesota,  on  Indian 
affairs,  i.  364,  366,  368,  373. 

Winthrop,  John,  statue  of,  ii.  388  ;  re 
marks  on,  388-392. 

Wirz  trial,  quoted,  ii.  226-229 

Wise,  H.  A.,  of  Va.,  on  money  bills,  i.  689. 

Wood,  Fernando,  of  N.  Y.,  i.  6,  15,  74, 
424,  540,  541,  552-554;  his  Tariff  Bill, 
ii.  551  seq.;  on  army  bill,  666-668. 


Wood  Tariff  Bill,  speech  on  the,  ii.  551- 

570.     See  Tariff. 
Woodbury,  Mr.  Justice,  on  martial  law,  i. 

161,  165,  166. 


Y. 


Yardstick,   redemption   of,  ii.    180,    268, 

269,  595- 
Yarranton,   Andrew,   father    of    English 

political  economy,  ii.  253,  254. 
Yeates,  J.  D.,  of  N.  C.,  statement  of,  ii. 

372. 
Young,  Edward,  table  of  prices,  i.  291. 


THE   END. 


University  Press  :   John  Wilson  &  Son,  Cambridge. 


5  4  9 


. 


